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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



SOME ROADS TO ROME 
IN AMERICA 



BEING 

PERSONAL RECORDS OF CONVERSIONS TO 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 



EDITED BY 



GEORGINA PELL CURTIS 



" Thus saith the Lord : Stand ye on the ways and see, and 
ask for the old paths, which is the good way; and walk ye in it, 
and you shall find refreshment for your souls."— y<?r. vi^ i6. 



ST. LOUIS, MO., & FREIBURG (BADEN) 

Published by B. Herder 

1909 

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co. 



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LiSRARY of CONGRESS 
Tv/o CoDies Received 

MAR 17 ia09 

. Copi-riknt ftotry ^ 



CLASS 



XXc, Mp, 



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Copyright, 1909, 
By Joseph Gummersbach 



— BECKTOLD— 

PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO. 
ST. LOUIS, MO. 



TO ALL SINCERE AND EARNEST SOULS WITHOUT THE CHURCH 
WHO HAVE SET THEIR FEET ON THE ROAD THAT LEADS TO 
THE CITY "SET ON A HILL." 



"AN HIGHWAY SHALL BE THERE AND IT SHALL BE 

CALLED THE WAY OF HOLINESS THE WAYFARING MEN, 

THOUGH FOOLS, SHALL NOT ERR THEREIN. 

THE REDEEMED SHALL WALK THERE: AND THE RANSOMED 

OF THE LORD SHALL RETURN THEY SHALL OBTAIN JOY 

AND GLADNESS, AND SORROW AND SIGHING SHALL FLEE 

AWAY." -Isaiah xxxv : 8-g. 



LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION. 

Cardinal's Residence^ 

408 N. Charles St. 

Baltimore. 

November the i6th, 1908. 
Dear Miss Curtis: — 

I am in receipt of your kind favor of the 13th 
instant, by which you inform me that you are about 
to pubHsh a work entitled, '' Some Roads to Rome 
in America." 

From the title of your work it is evident that it 
will not only be interesting but also instructive, and 
you have my sincerest good wishes for success ; the 
more so because the book has the cordial approval 
of several members of the Clergy in whose judg- 
ment I have the fullest confidence. 
Praying God to bless you, I am 

Sincerely Yours in Xto., 

J. Card. Gibbons, 
Archbishop of Baltimore. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

An Army Officer i 

Charles Fisk Beach, Jr 15 

Major Henry F. Brownson 28 

Mrs. Anne E. Buchanan 31 

Dr. George J. Bull 37 

Miss Emma Forbes Gary 71 

Rev. B. Stuart Chambers 75 

Mrs. Winthrop Ghanler 83 

Miss Harriet Brewer Ghurchill 85 

Mr. Alexis I. du Pont Goleman 91 

Mr. Garyl Goleman 95 

Rev. John E. Gopus, S. J 113 

Hasket Derby, M.D 134 

Hon. Henry Glay Dillon 142 

Mr. Moses Hale Douglas 152 

Miss Susan L. Emery 155 

Rev. Hiram Francis Fairbanks 162 

Mr. Henry G. Granger 181 

Dr. Edward Lee Greene 187 

Rev. John Handly, G. S. P 246 

Nicholas L. Hornsby, M.D 248 

Rev. Daniel E. Hudson, G.S.G 260 

Rev. Edward Joseph Jewell 263 

"K" 278 

Mrs. Van Brugh Livingston 296 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Mr. Hugh Fraser Mackintosh 300 

Mr. William Markoe 316 

Mr. William Stetson Merrill 333 

Mr. John Mitchell 343 

Miss Julia G. Robins 344 

Mrs. Winthrop Rutherfurd 362 

Very Rev. George M. Searle, C.S.P 363 

Miss Molly Elliot Seawell 376 

Mrs. Henrietta Channing Dana Skinner. ... 381 

"E. L. S." 391 

Mr. William H. Sloan 397 

Dr. James Field Spalding 407 

Mr. Frank H. Spearman 409 

Right Rev. Monsignor William E. Starr . . . 436 

Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard 437 

Very Rev. James Kent Stone, C.P 448 

Mrs. Bellamy Storer 460 

Miss Susie T. Swift (Sister Imelda Teresa O.P.) . . 463 

Rev. John D. Whitney, S.J 497 

Rev. Stephen Warren Wilson 504 

Rev. Clarence E. Woodman, C.S.P 514 

Rev. Henry H. Wyman, C.S.P 516 

X. Y. Z 524 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

The English " Roads to Rome " met with so fa- 
vorable a reception, and excited so much attention 
in this country, that it was felt an American book 
on the same lines would find a place of its own. 

After months of compilation the present volume 
is offered to the American public with the conviction 
that it presents a record of absorbing i-nterest. 

Over many different roads, through doubt and 
struggles and difficulties innumerable, the writers 
have reached the one world-wide Church, which in 
these days of diversity and unrest in religion, and 
unbelief and social anarchy, is coming to be recog- 
nized as the Rock, which in the time of the great 
water flood will remain firm and unshaken. 

These records, therefore, present the ultimate and 
final conclusions of men and women of intelligence 
and education who, having sounded the height and 
depth of religious doubt, and even agnostic unbelief, 
have found their safety in the Catholic Church. 
How they reached their final conclusions these 
pages tell — in language clear, logical, insistent ; al- 
though the unbiased reader will plainly see that 
over and above the perusal of books, the deductions 
of religious controversy, and the conversations be- 

vii 



viii EDITOR'S PREFACE 

tween Catholic and Protestant, one thing is needful 
to place the final seal on the convert's step, and that 
is Faith, which can only be the gift of God. All 
that goes before is the preparation, the final gift is 
the consummation. Without the preparation the 
gift might not so easily have been given and re- 
ceived; and without the final gift, all the reading 
and controversy in the world is of no avail. 

The Editor's appeal for contributions to her book 
met with so ready a response from all parts of the 
country that she was finally obliged to reject much 
valuable material which she would have been glad 
to use ; but which lack of space obliged her to omit. 
In many instances she found it difficult to choose. 
For two of these stories, Mr. Charles Warren Stod- 
dard's and the Very Rev. James Kent Stone's, the 
Editor is indebted to two books, " A Troubled 
Heart " (from the Ave Maria press), and " The In- 
vitation Heeded." Four other stories which had 
already appeared in pamphlet form were adapted 
by the Editor, or rewritten by the authors, for 
" Some Roads to Rome " — the remaining forty- 
two stories are new. 

The Editor desires to express her gratitude to 
those of her friends and the Reverend Clergy who 
gave her valuable suggestions and advice, as well 
as encouragement. 

Chief among these good friends are the Rev. 
Daniel E. Hudson, C.S.C. LL.D., Editor of the 
''Ave Maria"; the Rev. John J. Wynne, S.J., Ed- 



EDITOR'S PREFACE ix 

itor of "" The Messenger " ; the Very Rev. George M. 
Searle, Superior General of the Congregation of St. 
Paul the Apostle, and the Rev. W. P. Mclntyre, 
O.P., Editor of '' The Rosary!' 

That these pages may dispel mistaken ideas of 
the Church and assist doubting souls to see their 
way clear before them, is the earnest desire of the 
Editor, who hopes that they may find — in the 
words of the great Cardinal Newman — that 
" either the Catholic religion is verily the coming 
of the unseen world into this, or there is nothing 
positive, nothing dogmatic, nothing real in any of 
our notions as to whence we come and whither we 

go- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME 
IN AMERICA 



AN ARMY OFFICER, 

(Late in command in the Philippines.) 

Why I should have abandoned the church in 
which my family, as far back as I have ever traced 
it, had been satisfied, and have entered a Church in 
which none had ever lived until the conversion of 
my sainted mother, is still a matter of grateful won- 
der to me as it was an unpleasant surprise to my 
immediate family. 

For generations, so far back as I have been able 
to learn, my ancestors have been members of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, and apparently satis- 
fied with the hope held out by its tenets. No fear 
of the legitimate succession of its bishops and 
priests had ever disturbed the equanimity of their 
minds, or induced them to read the history of faith 
and study the claims of that older Church, which in 
their estimation had continued the abuses their an- 
cestors had " reformed " in the sixteenth century, 
without disturbing the ApostoHc succession of their 
episcopate. 

I 



2 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

My grandfather had entered the ministry, and 
shortly after his ordination had married and as a 
missionary had floated down the Ohio river on a 
raft, very early in the nineteenth century, landing 
at Cincinnati, and founding the first Episcopal 
church in that place, afterwards known as St. 
Paul's. 

He died long before the Civil War, but when I 
as a boy was sent to the Sunday-school of that 
church, I could read on a marble slab, placed on the 
wall in his memory, the estimate of regard in which 
he was held by his parishioners. 

I was taught, not only the sufficiency of the sac- 
raments of the church he had served as missionary, 
but also, a good deal of the family pride, which 
should hold loyally in the church all descendants of 
such a missionary. My grandmother survived him 
many years and with her we frequently visited, 
when my father, an Army Officer, was absent dur- 
ing the Civil War, or on the frontier. She had 
Puritanical notions of the holiness of the Sabbath, 
never served meals cooked on that day, never per- 
mitted any recreation or amusement, and made of 
it in her misguided zeal a day of gloom and dread 
for her grandchildren. 

Even my father would never write a letter, take 
a drive or walk for pleasure, or begin a journey 
on such days, though he did permit warmly-cooked 
meals, and did occasionally visit on week days, the 
theaters, called by my grandmother " the Devil's 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 3 

houses." Still he always retained her aversion to 
games of chance, and he never learned to play- 
cards. He was assiduous in devotion to his church 
and clannishly loyal to any fellow members. I can 
remember his frequent assertion that he had sym- 
pathized with the '' Know-Nothing " movement, as 
he considered Catholics in a class with foreigners, 
and that the government might be endangered if 
any Catholic obtained office or responsibility. 

My mother, too, had been raised in a family that 
had long been satisfied with the Protestant Episco- 
pal church, and my earliest recollection of her is of 
accompanying her to church and of being taught 
prayers in which none but God Himself was ad- 
dressed or referred to. I still have the certificate of 
my baptism in that church, found with my mother's 
marriage certificate after her death. 

Ours was a very happy family, though always 
poor. My father had remained in the Army after 
the Civil War, and he was so frequently moved 
about on the frontier that our home was changed 
about once a year, and my poor parents must have 
struggled to make ends meet and provide an educa- 
tion for their three children. 

When I w^as about tw^elve years old and therefore 
before I had reached the age and degree of dis- 
cernment at which children of Protestant Episcopal 
families are confirmed and admitted to communion, 
a cloud came over the family life. My mother at- 
tended service at a little Catholic church in a west- 



4 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ern city, and seemed impressed. It was, in the es- 
timation of our family traditions, equivalent to the 
voluntary exposure of oneself to the contamination 
of leprosy. 

There had never been any false sympathy in my 
family with High Church doctrines or practices. 
At that time it would have sounded like rank heresy 
to call one's minister a priest, or to place within the 
sanctuary anything more than a pulpit, a chair and 
table. To be sure, we daily said in our creed that 
we believed in the Communion of Saints, but no 
one ever thought what it meant. 

We heard our minister at morning service recite 
the Confiteor in a very general way and extend ab- 
solution to all who happened to hear him. And we 
stated our belief in the " forgiveness of sins," but 
we would have been shocked had anyone suggested 
that we orally and specifically confess those sins. 
That was before Episcopalians, in America at least, 
had priests in vestments, or altars which represented 
more than tables on which at times a silver tray of 
bread and a pitcher of wine appeared. The sermon 
was the most important part of our service. We 
met to hear an eloquent discourse, not too doctrinal, 
but comforting in our delusion, or to hear a well- 
trained choir. If anyone had suggested the idea of 
worship, or a sacrifice, he would have been thought 
a " Papist/' The nearest approach to High Church 
practice which I remember, was that my father ab- 
stained from meat on Grood Friday. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 5 

Shortly after my mother's visit to the Catholic 
church, we moved to Cincinnati, and there she was 
instructed by the brother of Archbishop Purcell. 
One of my grandmother's neighbors was Mrs. Sarah 
Peter, a very pious widow, a convert, who had 
built adjoining her residence a chapel for the benefit 
of the people, into which she could look from a 
balcony or open window of her house during all the 
services. 

She was my mother's first acquaintance in the 
Catholic Church, and no doubt assisted her with ad- 
vice and good books. I can remember well being 
taken to that balcony on Sunday afternoons and 
looking down upon a devotional congregation in at- 
tendance at Benediction, while I enjoyed the fra- 
grance of the incense which ascended from the 
Altar. I then observed for the first time that the 
congregation was kneeling most of the time instead 
of being seated; that the benches on which they 
knelt seemed more important than the seats of 
which they formed a part. Prayer almost en- 
tirely replaced the sermon as the essence of the 
service. 

After a few months of instruction my mother 
was received into the Church by the late Archbishop 
Purcell, and we joined my father at his new sta- 
tion. In her zeal she endeavored to bring my 
father into her new church, but used no secret 
influence over her children. However, her exam- 
ple was sufficient to induce us, without appreciation 



6 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

of the seriousness of the step, to proclaim our de- 
sire to become Catholics also. 

Within a year my father was moved again, this 
time to a place where there were no schools and it 
was decided best for the family to remain in the 
East. My father's relatives, shocked by my moth- 
er's conversion and believing it their duty to save 
the children from their mother's fate, persuaded 
him to enter the children in Episcopal boarding 
schools, where they would be beyond my mother's 
example or control, and their attachment to her 
religion might be stifled in time. My sisters were 
thus forcibly taken from my mother and enteried a 
boarding school in Canada which was conducted by 
the Episcopal church. But some disturbance hav- 
ing arisen at the corresponding school for boys, be- 
fore I had been installed there, my mother took me 
to a city nearby, where I attended the public schools 
and lived with her at a hotel. I have always felt 
a sense of gratitude towards the boys of that board- 
ing school for their lawlessness; for it was the in- 
direct cause of my continued association with my 
mother, and I was thus subjected longer to the 
sweet influences of her example. 

She made no attempt to have me enter the 
Church, as that was so contrary to my father's 
wishes. But she was exact in the performance of 
her religious duties, and she endeavored, as she said, 
to atone for so many years out of the Church by a 
generous practice of its devotions. She attended 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA j 

Mass early each morning and for propriety's sake, 
took me as her escort. I well remember being 
dragged very unwillingly by her all over the city 
one Holy Thursday, while she visited each church 
in the city on foot. 

I was too young to understand the services, but 
the sermons surprised me, and I began to study my 
(Protestant) Bible, and to compare the texts which 
seemed to sustain the Church. I may add that I 
have never had a Catholic Bible, and have rarely 
seen one; but I found sufficient in the Bible issued 
by the American Bible Society, to shake my faith in 
the church in which I had been brought up, and to 
convince me of the Apostolic sanction of sacra- 
ments and doctrines which I learned were held by 
the Catholics, but denied or ignored by the sects. 

The separation of her girls from her caused my 
mother much anxiety, as they were too young, she 
thought, for boarding-school life. It caused her no 
little pain to be thought a dangerous influence for 
her children. After a year of such separation she 
was taken ill with brain fever and never recovered 
her health, dying at a comparatively youthful age, 
just as her children had attained an age at which 
they might cease to be a care and possibly become 
a comfort to her. She was buried from the very 
cathedral in which less than five years before she 
had been received as a convert. Her conversion 
had caused her much sorrow through the petty per- 
secution and meddling of well-intending relatives. 



8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

But only God Himself knows the consolation she 
was granted through the ministrations of His 
Church and the grace given her to bear her cross 
during the later years of her life. 

I was then only sixteen. I would have been de- 
nied my father's permission to enter the Catholic 
Church, had I asked it, as he was very bitter in his 
belief that my mother's conversion had ruined her 
life and broken up the family's happiness. But 
while I had learned sufficient to shake my faith in 
any Protestant sect, my attachment to the Catholic 
Church was not such as to prompt me to insist upon 
joining it. I realized that it would cost some ef- 
fort to comply with its discipline and live up to the 
Faith conscientiously, and I failed to appreciate 
what a help its Sacraments would prove in such ef- 
fort. While I continued to use my Catholic prayer- 
book and occasionally visited a Catholic church, my 
faith was being lulled to sleep by the growth of 
doubts concerning the Divine origin of any religion. 

Interest in school and later in business suppressed 
in me any immediate purpose to determine the va- 
lidity of the claims of my sect, just as the good seed 
of the parable was choked by thorns. I attended 
all churches, especially those where eloquent ser- 
mons could be heard; sometimes an Episcopal 
church with my father or sisters, but more fre- 
quently any new sect of which I read in the papers. 

I think no church escaped my visit, excepting, per- 
haps, the Christian Scientists, of whom at that time 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 9 

little was heard. Doubtless had I postponed my 
submission to the Catholic Church a few years 
longer I might have attended a greater variety, as 
the sects seem to multiply in a prolific manner. 
However, the multiplicity of faiths and practices al- 
most destroyed my confidence in any. Even within 
the Episcopal church I found in one or two cities 
congregations which I believe my late grandfather 
would hardly have recognized as orthodox fellow 
communicants. 

One Sunday afternoon, I attended with my sis- 
ters, a vesper service at one of the High churches 
of an eastern city. My father would not go, as he 
was still loyal to the Low church, the old-fashioned 
strictly Protestant branch of his church. The pas- 
tor of this High church was known as Father . 

On his altar was a handsome marble statue of the 
Blessed Virgin, and after the vespers was recited a 
litany, including supplications to the Blessed Virgin 
and some of the saints. The congregation bowed 
the knee in passing the altar, or entering a pew, 
and used the Sign of the Cross. Incense was also 
used in the ceremony. Attendance there was a 
fashionable fad of such Episcopalians as yearned 
for the forms at least, of the Catholic Church. 
Preaching was replaced by prayer, and many a 
Low-churchman who came to scoff, remained to 
pray. 

The church itself was known as that of St. Mary 
the Virgin. I had heard that Father called 



lO SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

his morning service the mass, and that, upon appli- 
cation, he would listen to individual confessions, but 
I did not learn that he considered such a practice 
an indispensable preparation for communion. 

During this period I gained much information 
from reading the Lives of the Saints, and stories 
of conversions to the Faith. I acquired, however, 
an idea that it was easier to die for the Faith as did 
the martyrs, than to live in it with the opposition of 
one's family as had my mother. This did not make 
it easy to announce my desires. 

I was then twenty-one, and was impressed with 
the responsibility incurred and the necessity of an- 
nouncing my choice. But I hesitated to hurt my 
father's feelings by such action. 

About this time I was very desirous of securing 
an appointment to the Army, and I had forwarded 
my application, which, for lack of influential 
friends, I felt little confidence of getting. Fully 
convinced that no other Church offered claims of 
Apostolic origin to be compared with those of the 
Catholic Church, I had determined that some day 
before my death I should become a Catholic; but I 
wanted to postpone such a step as long as seemed 
safe. In my anxiety to secure the appointment re- 
ferred to, I made a vow that if God should see fit 
to grant me the boon I asked, and for which I had 
so little reason to hope, I would apply for admission 
to the Church before joining my regiment. 

Although such appointments were then very rare, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA II 

as few vacancies existed and several hundred appli- 
cations had been filed, I was to my great surprise 
and pleasure nominated, and after examination, ap- 
pointed. So I felt obliged to keep my promise and 
believed that God had decided it was time to take 
the step I had hoped to postpone indefinitely. 

We were spending the summer at a coast resort, 
and one Sunday I walked to the nearest town and 
after hearing Mass at a little church, asked the 
pastor, to whom I was a stranger, to receive me 
into the Church. Of course he declined, question- 
ing my seriousness and my acquaintance with its 
faith and discipline. But he invited me to dine 
with him, and devoted the afternoon to questioning 
me on the catechism and doctrine of the Church. 
He was satisfied with my answers, and promised to 
hear my general confession, and admit me to Bap- 
tism and Communion the following Sunday. 

I announced my intention to my father, and in- 
vited him to be present at my Baptism. He de- 
clined, tried to dissuade me from such an act, and 
pleaded with me to remain loyal to my grand- 
father's religion. But I had gone too far to halt, 
and realized that my conviction of the Divine origin 
of the Church would render any further delay sin- 
ful, as well as a violation of my vow. While my 
good father, ignorant of the truth, might be saved 
in the church in which he had been born and lived, 
I should be judged by the light given me and could 
never be forgiven for declining its guidance. 



12 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

So, on the following Sunday, I walked to the lit- 
tle church very early, made my first confession, re- 
ceived conditional Baptism, (an acolyte whom I 
have never since seen, being my sponsor), and re- 
ceived for the first time the Body and Blood of my 
Lord Jesus Christ, of which Father 's instruc- 
tion had given me such an inspiration. 

I had not then a single acquaintance in the Cath- 
olic Church, but while such was usually an indis- 
pensable requisite for admission to a Protestant con- 
gregation, I found no difficulty in worshipping at a 
Catholic chapel or church, absolutely a stranger to 
all about me. 

I believe such isolation tended to render even 
more beneficial and salutary the graces bestowed on 
me by the Sacraments. I could meditate as well in 
a crowded cathedral as in a vacant chapel. The 
little red light before the altar drew my thoughts to 
our Lord alone in the tabernacle, and my loneliness 
served to render communion of thought and desire 
with Him more consoling. 

For several years my frontier life kept me 
where a bishop seldom visited, so it was some time 
before I was confirmed. Although at my Baptism 
I was thoroughly convinced of the historical claims 
of the Church, and understood sufficient of her doc- 
trine to warrant my admission, I did not then un- 
derstand or appreciate all the beautiful devotions 
permitted and encouraged as a stimulus to zeal. 
But none of the questions which deter some Protest- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA I3 

ants from entry into the Church ever embarrassed 
me. Once convinced that I had found the Church 
founded by our Lord, I was ready to accept with- 
out question anything taught by His representa- 
tives having His authority. I believed in the Di- 
vine origin of the Church, and as for the rest was 
ready to cry, " Help Thou my unbelief." 

The personal qualities of a priest never appealed 
to me, except when outside his church or off duty. 
I could as willingly confess my sins tO' a stranger 
as to one whose piety I admired. 

During the guerrilla warfare waged by Philippine 
insurgents, when soldiers were frequently captured 
or killed when caught outside our lines, I attended 
Mass in a town not garrisoned by our troops, kneel- 
ing among a hostile people among whom were in- 
surgents in disguise, and with a revolver in every 
belt, making my confession to a native priest who 
was doubtless a secret agent, or spy of the insur- 
gents. I would not as a soldier, have trusted him 
behind my back outside the church. Yet in his 
church, and aside from his political and my official 
status, he was a priest of God, and I a penitent Cath- 
olic. While either might have been called upon to 
capture or kill the other outside that building, all 
strife was forgotten in presence of the Prince of 
Peace. It was a striking example of the universal- 
ity of the Church. If thinking Protestants could 
only travel and see the miraculous results of the ef- 
forts of the Church to comply with the command 



14 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

of Christ to " teach all nations " ; if they only reflect 
that no other creed or code has been taught to all 
nations, any doubt of the Apostolic origin of our 
holy religion will be dispelled. 

Since my Confirmation, years of happy participa- 
tion in the Sacraments and devotional exercises of 
the Church, a pious Catholic wife, the training of 
virtuous children, and God's almost miraculous as- 
sistance in many crises, have convinced me that 
my life would have been idle and useless had I re- 
sisted the prompting of my conscience when called 
to leave the religious affiliation of all my family 
and friends. 

The peace and consolation I have found should 
have been purchased at the expense of trials and 
persecution. But I have no such merit. The step 
that seemed so momentous caused no pain. My 
father was soon reconciled to my decision and my 
only sorrow has been that my example has been 
fruitless, and none of my family has followed me 
into that haven of rest from doubt and anxiety 
w^hich God's one true Church has proved to be. 

Surely His promise has been kept. His way is 
easy and His burden light. 



CHARLES FISK BEACH, JUN., 

Attorney and Counsellor-at-Law of the United States ; Lec- 
turer on Anglo-American Law at the Law School, Uni- 
versity of Paris; born in Kentucky, 4 Feb., 1854; son of 
the Rev. Charles Fisk and Harriette Adelia Lockwood 
Beach. Educated: Yerkes' Grammar School, Paris, Ky., 
Centre College; Columbia University; University of Paris. 
Called to Bar, New York, 1881 ; practised law in Wall 
street until 1895; in Paris and London (as an American 
Counsel) 1896-1902; in St. Paul, Minn., 1902-3; in Paris 
since 1903 ; Editor of The Railway and Corporation Law 
Journal in New York 1888-1892 ; Lecturer on Civil Law, 
Equity Jurisprudence, and Federal Court practice in St. 
Paul College of Law, 1902-3; author of Modern Equity 
Jurisprudence, Contributory Negligence, etc. 

My parents, now both of blessed memory, were 
very pious people, so that religion had a large place 
in my bringing-up. My father was a Presbyterian 
clergyman in Kentucky and I was taught the West- 
minster Catechism and sent regularly during my 
boyhood and youth to Sunday-School and to 
Church. When I went away from home to school 
it was to a provincial Presbyterian College where 
religious instruction was prominent in the curricu- 
lum. Thus by the time I took my bachelor's de- 
gree I was thoroughly indoctrinated in Calvinism 
of the strictest and extremest sort. I never joined 
the church and I recollect that early in life I began 
to feel a vague and growing impatience at the re- 

15 



l6 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ligiosity of the training to which I was subjected. 
I do not remember as a youth ever to have felt any 
spiritual interest in religious matters, but on the 
contrary what was so carefully taught me created 
in my mind a more or less decided distaste for the 
form of Protestant Christianity with which I was 
thus made familiar. 

During my College course and before I came of 
age I began to take some intellectual interest in the 
Roman Catholic Church, although all I then knew 
about it had come to me from Protestant sources — 
that is to say that most of my information was mis- 
information. When I came to graduate I prepared, 
according to the practice then in vogue, a graduat- 
ing address, choosing for my subject the connection 
between the Roman and the Papal power, and en- 
titling my speech " Caesar and St. Peter." I don't 
remember what gave me the idea, or how I came to 
choose that subject, but however that may have 
been, I tried to trace the development of the Papacy 
from and out of the earlier Roman Civil adminis- 
tration, the Pontifex Maximus upon that theory 
being historically the forerunner and finally becom- 
ing the Pope. In that early effort I paid a boyish 
tribute to the Church of Rome, to which I had been 
inspired by that first study of its history, with the 
result that my professors as well as my parents were 
so shocked that, before I was allowed to make the 
speech on that Puritan rostrum, I was required to 
tone it down and to eliminate some of the rhetoric 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1*] 

and much of the eulogy. As it was finally passed by 
the Faculty and as I was permitted to speak it the 
composition was regarded a bit heretical and some- 
thing to be deplored. It was of no real consequence 
and is now of no interest to anybody except to me 
and only as indicating a trend or tendency in my 
mind at that early age. 

Going soon after to New York to study law I 
think I forgot for the most part the interest which 
had then begun in my mind over Catholicism, and 
which up to that time had been merely intellectual. 
I do not remember that for some years thereafter I 
thought much on the subject. I was busy making 
my way in my profession and then thought but lit- 
tle of religious matters. But, as time wore on, I 
found myself more and more recurring to the sub- 
ject. What I occasionally read about it and what 
I heard and saw in the larger life which I lived 
after I got actively into business in New York 
tended, as it now seems to me, more and more — 
but very gradually and almost imperceptibly — to 
draw me toward the Church. I did not think much 
or seriously about it for twenty years after leaving 
College, but what I did think about it led up in a 
way to the more positive and reasoned convictions of 
later years. There was always the germ in my 
mind. 

In 1896 I came abroad to live, going first to 
London, and from that time and place I date my 
active personal interest in Catholicism. There I 



1 8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

early made the acquaintance of the late Rev. Father 
Gordon of the Oratory, whose conversation and 
friendship was most helpful to me. He was a con- 
frere of Newman, had been with him at Oxford 
and had been in and of the Oxford movement. He 
was as all the world knows a very remarkable and 
a very superior man. He was not only a man of 
God of exceptional spiritual force but he was also a 
man of exceeding personal charm. It was easy to 
think as he thought, and what we talked about and 
what he said to me — not at all by way of prosely- 
tism, but in response to my queries and demands — 
helped me to solve many difficulties both intellectual 
and spiritual. From about that time I began to 
realize that I was becoming consciously or uncon- 
sciously a Catholic by intellectual conviction. 
From about that time I may say that I was a Cath- 
olic, because I then became conscious of yielding as- 
sent to the dogmas which make up Catholic theol- 
ogy. I speak now only of the mental process. 

I had become a Catholic, because I had come to 
believe Catholic doctrine, and that more by conver- 
sation and reflection than by anything I had then 
read. It was only afterwards that I got hold of 
Newman's " Development of Christian Doctrine," 
which is the most convincing book I have read on 
the subject, and of his fine " Apologia pro vita sua," 
and later yet of Cardinal Gibbons' little primer of 
Catholicism, " The Faith of our Fathers," which 
every convert ought to read. I became much in- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME KN AMERICA I9 

terested at that time in talking with intelHgent 
Catholics upon religious subjects — not only with 
Father Gordon, but also with such a man as the 
late Rev. Father Whalen, of the Mount at Wad- 
hurst, a rare spirit of whom I saw much during the 
earlier years of my residence in England and from 
whom I drew much spiritual succour, as well as 
with others in London, who still living shall here 
be nameless. That was a time when I was rela- 
tively at leisure, after many years of strenuous busi- 
ness activity, and when my thoughts turned strongly 
toward speculation on religious subjects along Cath- 
olic lines. I thought a great deal about it for some 
years, and I reasoned it out, as a lawyer might do, 
little by little and somewhat in this wise: 

Protestantism had never appealed to me either in- 
tellectually or spiritually, and when I came to con- 
sider it as a religious system as critically as I could, 
that which most impressed me with it in its en- 
semble was that it is in its essence religious anarchy. 
I saw that the Protestantism of Luther and Calvin 
had, with us, quickly become the Protestantism of 
the English Puritans and the English State Church ; 
that that soon developed into the newer Protestant- 
ism of Wesley and the Baptists; and that that of 
Wesley and the Baptists soon grew into that of 
Brigham Young and of Alexander Campbell and of 
scores of other nondescript sects, and in my own 
time had further degenerated into that of Dowie 
and of Mrs. Eddy, and of the Higher Life and of 



20 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

what not, ad iniinitum and ad nauseam. A system 
of religion in which I myself seem to have as good 
a right as Luther or Wesley, or any Puritan or Mrs. 
Eddy, to start a sect and to promote a schism, 
seemed to me no " system " at all. All this multi- 
plication of sects and schisms impressed me as the 
logical and inevitable outcome of the cardinal 
Protestant doctrine of private interpretation. If 
there is no final and authoritative interpretation of 
the Holy Scriptures, if each may and must interpret 
for himself, if one man's gloss is as good as another 
man's gloss, and if there is no one to decide finally, 
no source of authority which is infallible and su- 
preme and ultimate and of divine sanction, then it 
seemed to me that there is absolutely nothing in 
Christianity. It is something for noisy and design- 
ing scamps, male or female, to exploit for their own 
gain and to the ruin of their dupes. Religious 
anarchy never seemed to me any better than civil 
anarchy. 

If we should multiply cheap copies of the Statutes 
and encourage all men to read them and to construe 
them in the light of their own understanding or 
misunderstanding, and to act on such construction, 
staking their lives and property on the correctness 
of their private notions about law, and tell them not 
only to reject any and all authoritative interpreta- 
tion but also to rely solely on their own wisdom as 
to what the Statutes mean, we should be doing 
about the civil law just exactly what the Protestants 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 21 

do about the divine law, and we should have in civil 
society just exactly what we have in religion — ab- 
solute and impossible anarchy. Civil society could 
not exist on that basis or without courts duly estab- 
lished to construe and to enforce the law or without 
a Supreme Court to decide absolutely and finally as 
to the meaning and intent of the law. Neither as 
it seemed to me could society on its religious side 
exist in the absence of authority and without a 
Supreme Court from which there is no appeal and 
which must be recognized by all. Protestantism 
thus appeared to me to be a system of confusion 
that no wise and just God could create or sanction. 
I could not understand how a God infinitely wise 
and just could authorize a system upon which was 
to depend the eternal salvation of the human race 
which nobody could understand and about which 
none agree. 

There are several hundred local Protestant sects 
scattered here and there over the earth, all claim- 
ing to teach the truth, all of equal rank, all pretend- 
ing to derive their doctrine from the same book, 
many of them putting up claims to exclusive prerog- 
ative, no two of which teach the same system, many 
of which teach the most contrary doctrines, some 
of which promulgate what most men agree is non- 
sense, and all of which have but a local and generally 
but an ephemeral existence. The distinctive doc- 
trine of each little sect, that particular ism which 
constitutes its raison d'etre, is stoutly denied and 



2.2 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

held for heresy by most or all of the rest. Each 
sect conclusively and to its own satisfaction 
" proves " its doctrine from the Scriptures. Thus 
the pro and the con of every conceivable religious 
tenet is asserted by one sect or another and claimed 
to be " proved " by holy writ. There being no one 
to decide, it results that for these people taken in 
the mass and as a whole, the Bible means nothing, 
proves nothing, teaches nothing, and produces 
nothing but confusion and anarchy. That is pre- 
cisely the net result of the sum total of Protestant 
doctrine. Some of these sects keep the same name 
for a century or two ; most of them do not even do 
that, but all are constantly changing. Within my 
lifetime most of the leading sects in America have 
modified one or other of their tenets some of them 
radically. Some sects in the same time have about 
died out and many new ones have been born. 
Upon the Protestant theory this must go on for all 
the future; and just as the Methodism of to-day is 
very little kin to the Methodism of John Wesley's 
time, and as the Presbyterianism of the twentieth 
century has almost nothing in common with the 
Presbyterianism of Jonathan Edwards, so the sects 
of the next century wall inevitably develop new 
phases of belief and teach new doctrines and pro- 
claim new dogmas as essential to salvation. Where 
is it to end? And considering that one's soul's 
salvation depends upon it, w^hat shall one do to 
make a wise choice among the sects? 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 23 

It seemed to me that most thoughtful men born 
Protestants who are content to remain in any sect 
and are satisfied to beheve its doctrines can do so 
only so far as they think only about that sect and 
confine themselves rigidly to it. If one would re- 
main intellectually satisfied with Presbyterianism, 
or Methodism, or Episcopacy, or what not, he must 
shut his eyes to everything else and put the em- 
phasis of his thinking, not on a comparative study 
of Protestantism as a whole as contradistinguished 
from Catholicism, but upon an exclusive contempla- 
tion of the dogmas of his own sect, whatever it is. 
If one takes a serious general view of Protestant 
sects, weighing one over against the other in any 
really intelligent fashion, applying a rigid scientific 
analysis to the operation, and going at it in its en- 
semble, one must conclude that there is an enormous 
amount of humbug in it, that it is necessarily and 
in its essence inconsistent and impossible, irrational, 
grotesque and absurd. Who is wise enough to sep- 
arate the wheat from the chaff? Why is one sect 
worthier to be followed than another? No single 
Protestant tenet of any sect which is not stoutly de- 
nied and repudiated by some other Protestant sect. 
Confusion worse confounded, each remitted to his 
own wisdom, all reaching different conclusions, and 
no one to decide. A reductio ad absurdum if ever 
there was one. Verily the only way to have intel- 
lectual peace in Protestantism, as it seemed to me, 
is to stick stoutly and blindly to one sect, not think- 



24 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ing or caring or knowing much about the rest. To 
know them all is to know how absurd the whole 
scheme is. Any human government that instituted 
such a system in civil affairs would be repudiated by 
all reasonable men. I never could see how a reli- 
gious system of that sort is any better. 

The sixteenth century struck me as far too late 
for the discovery of ultimate religious verity. If 
the proposition is that until then the Christian sys- 
tem had been wrong, if it then called for repudia- 
tion, and if only then real divine light was finally 
vouchsafed to a few schismatics in Germany and 
England, I could not resist the conclusion that the 
whole Christian system is unworthy of serious con- 
sideration; because who shall say that some cen- 
turies hence, or for the matter of that the day after 
to-morrow, a new " Reformation " may not break 
out, and new light — new gospel truth essential to 
salvation — be discovered, superseding all previous 
issues — like railroad time-tables, or the catalogues 
of the department stores or the telephone books. 

So it seemed to me more and more as I thought 
of it. 

In contradistinction to all this confusion I saw 
the certitude of Catholicism; I saw historically a 
real Church, not a kaleidoscopic jumble of sects 
organized and reorganized by schismatics from time 
to time, but the Church of God coming down to 
us from the Apostles and from Christ himself, con- 
tinuing in ordinary generation the work begun on 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 25 

earth by the divine Saviour. I was much impressed, 
as I considered its history, by the community of 
CathoHcism, its direct derivation from the Head 
of the Church, its historic oneness from the begin- 
ning; and I then was in a frame of mind to accept 
its claim to divine authority to govern and to in- 
terpret. That seemed to me reasonable and ra- 
tional, and to be what a wise God would naturally 
have ordained for His church on earth, if He or- 
dained anything. Anything else leaves all men in 
doubt, and in practice inevitably lets many men go 
wrong. All of Protestantism cannot possibly be 
true, much of Protestantism is certainly untrue and 
no human mind can decide what of Protestantism is 
true. There is therefore no safety in it. Who shall 
decide how far one sect is right and the others 
wrong? All make the same pretence to truth with 
equal fervor, while gravely putting out claims the 
most diametrically opposite. 

The mind rejecting that system turns necessarily 
to the only thing that is left, namely to Catholicism. 
If anything in Christianity is true, Catholicism is 
that thing. It is rational and reasonable and what 
serious men would expect of a wise God. It works 
order in religion, and works along lines that in 
other spheres commend themselves to sane men. 
The Catholic system is what we have in the home 
and in the State; it provides an authority from 
which there is no appeal. It gives us certitude. 
It does about divine law precisely what the State 



26 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

does and must do for civil law, that is it sets 
our doubts at rest by ultimate and final decision. 
If there is no power under heaven given among 
men of divine sanction so to decide, then the Bible 
means nothing and is no safe guide and Christianity 
is a dream. Lawyers know that statutes, even the 
most carefully drawn, must he interpreted by courts 
of last resort before they can safely advise their 
clients as to their true and ultimate force and 
effect. Everybody knows that what a statute really 
means is what the Supreme Court finally says it 
means — not what wrangling attorneys argue and 
claim it means. That is the position and pretension 
of the Catholic Church as to her authority to in- 
terpret the divine statutes. No other religious or- 
ganization makes or can make any such claim. 
Historically it is Catholicism or nothing. No truth 
was ever any truer than that. Unless, then, God 
has thus provided on earth a sure interpreter of 
His law and of His will, a final arbiter to speak 
a language that we can all understand, and to 
which we all must bow, divine law as attempted 
to be set forth in the Holy Scriptures is an in- 
scrutable mystery; no man knows what it is, or 
what to believe and can only stake his soul's salva- 
tion upon the best guess he can make. Under the 
Protestant scheme one man guesses Mormonism, 
another guesses High Church or Low Church Epis- 
copacy, another guesses Alexander Campbellism, 
another guesses Mrs. Eddy-ism, and so on all 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 27 

through the long Hst of the sects. Some surely 
guess wrong. 

It seemed to me that the authority of the his- 
toric Church, her divine sanction as against this 
chaos of conflicting isms is the only ark of safety. 

Reasoning of this sort, enforcing itself upon 
my understanding for a series of years, finally made 
me a Catholic from conviction. Then the grace 
of God I trust did the rest. So after a long period 
of hesitation I abjured the faith in which I was 
born, and in the ancient Church of the Carmelites 
in Paris, in the rue de Vaugirard, under the kindly 
ministration of Abbe Felix Klein, I was baptized 
and received into the one holy Roman Catholic 
Church. " Whereas I was Wind now I see." 



MAJOR HENRY F. BROWNSON, A.M., LL.D., 

DETROIT, MICHIGAN. 
(Son of the late Orestes A. Brownson, LL.D.) 

In Massachusetts, where I was born in August, 
1835, nothing was so much discussed by old and 
young as the claims of the different sects, and every 
little boy stood up for his own. Aly parents were 
Congregationalists ; my father a preacher of the 
Unitarian branch, my mother an adherent of the 
so-called Orthodox. Most of my religious instruc- 
tion at home, I received from my mother. When 
my father ceased preaching, he took a pew in the 
hall w^here the Episcopalians held their meetings, 
but without joining their communion, or attend- 
ing their exercises very regularly. I, however, was 
sent to their Sunday-school every week from nine 
to half after ten, and their services from half after 
ten to twelve, or later. In the afternoon I had two 
hours more of Sunday-school, and in the evening 
more services. 

In conformity with the old rule, " I must not 
work, I must not play, on God's holy Sabbath- 
day," when I came home I read the Bible. One 
day, in the summer of 1844, I was reading the 
Sixteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, and 

28 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 29 

when I came to the i8th verse, I asked my mother, 
'' What church was it that Christ built on the 
rock, which the gates of hell should not prevail 
against? " She answered, " That was the Catholic 
Church." " Then," I said, " that must be the true 
church?" "It was," she replied, "at first; but 
it became very corrupt, and in the sixteenth cen- 
tury holy men believed they were commissioned to 
reform it." "Then," I said, "the gates of hell 
did prevail against it." 

My mind kept on revolving this thought, that 
the Catholic Church was the church which Christ 
founded; and by the time that I came to read in 
St. Matthew's last chapter, " Behold ! I am with 
you all days, even to the consummation of the 
world," I was fully convinced that the Catholic 
Church was the true church, that Christ was in 
that Church and in no other. 

One morning in August of the same year, 1844, 
I picked up from my father's table in his study 
a prospectus of a new college at Worcester, Mass., 
where none but Catholic students were admitted. 
After reading it through, I went to breakfast, and 
there I asked my father to send me to that college. 
" They will not take you," he said ; " they admit 
only Catholic boys." " But I want to be a Catho- 
lic," I replied. 

"Very well ! you can go," my father said, "if 
you can get Channing to go with you." Channing 
was my next older brother, so called after the 



30 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

famous Unitarian. Channing's consent was ob- 
tained ; and before the midde of September we were 
both at the College of the Holy Cross, where we 
underwent instruction by one of the scholastics 
(Robert Boone, S.J.), and we were baptized, in 
company with four brothers from Georgia, named 
Healy. On this occasion my brother took the name 
of Ignatius, retaining only his first name, William. 
This occurred November i8th, 1844, and my father 
was conditionally baptized by the coadjutor to the 
Bishop of Boston in the previous October, having 
been for months under that Bishop's instruction, 
though of that we were wholly ignorant, as, I 
think, my mother was also. 

At Christmas we made our first Communion, my 
brother and I were confirmed the June following. 

Once satisfied that Christ founded the Catholic 
Church, and abides with it through all time, and 
that He sent the Holy Ghost to teach it all truth, 
I have always believed what that Church teaches, 
and have never been inclined to prefer my own 
views to the teachings of the Spirit of Truth. 



MRS. ANNE BUCHANAN, 

ATKINS, ARKANSAS. 

Descendant of Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of Eng- 
land and Martyr under King Henry the Eighth. 

It was a remarkable fact that among converts 
in our family my brother should have been the 
first to bring back to us the lost faith of the 
Ropers. Our mother was a direct descendant of 
the Blessed Thomas More. My brother was at 
college and about to be ordained for the ministry 
in the Church of England when to the astonish- 
ment of all his friends he declared himself a Catho- 
lic. This was a great blow to us, for we were 
anticipating his ordination. Our relatives were 
irate — " not a shilling shall he ever have of mine," 
said the wealthiest of them. 

But his bravery withstood the lashing. He ob- 
tained a tutorship in Rome and in the course of a 
year entered college there. Returning to England 
he went to St. Edmund's and in a short time 
became a priest, and chaplain to the Earl of Denbigh 
(himself a saintly convert) and tutor to his son, 
the present Earl. For nine years his work among 
non-Catholics was greatly blessed; by his piety and 
zeal he converted a great many persons. 

As a member of the " High " Church of England 
31 



32 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

I had joined a religious community named the 
Order of Reparation to the Blessed Sacrament 
whose rule was taken from that of St. Francis 
with a little of St. Dominic's. I was living in the 
world and hence was what they called a tertiary 
member. This involved the wearing of out-door 
dress which I sometimes found annoying as I dis- 
liked singularity. A long dark grey cloak and a 
peculiarly plain bonnet gave me at times a self- 
consciousness and '' I-am-holier-than-thou " feel- 
ing which took complete possession of me at times 
while at others I was ashamed of it. 

My acquaintances were all Ritualists and on one 
of my birthdays I was presented with a large 
picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, beauti- 
fully framed in oak. This in place of the very 
pretty bouquets I was usually favored with was 
a great disappointment to me for I did not like 
the picture. I could not understand it; so with 
its face to the wall I stood it on the floor in my 
bedroom. My views were not nearly so advanced 
as those of my friends. I could not even say as 
many of them did a Hail Mary, because I believed 
the Established Church of England forbade my 
doing so. 

It was to my Reverend brother that I wrote 
about the picture, to which he made no reply. This 
seemed unkind and strange but I said no more 
about it. One day an empty niche in my room 
struck me as needing something to fill it and just 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 33 

to see how it looked I hung Our Lady's picture 
on a nail that was there ready for it. It looked 
well, the frame was handsome and I was satisfied 
that it should be there. On another day I was in 
trouble and praying earnestly to our Lord at the 
prieu-dieu that stood in the same niche when, with 
tearful eyes, I looked up at the Blessed Mother 
and her divine Son. There was something in the 
beautiful faces that won me and involuntarily I 
said, " Pray for me." 

And indeed I was'^ always sure that she did pray 
for me. I received what I had asked for, but I 
was too timid to pray to her regularly because of 
hereditary prejudice, and my Church forbade it. 

Easter was approaching and my son's vacation 
was to be made happy by a long-promised visit to 
Paris. We had arranged to start in a few days when 
I received a letter from my Reverend brother telling 
me he was coming to Tunbridge Wells for a rest. 
This would be delightful, but the trip to Paris — 
what of that? As the time was so ^hort it \Yas 
therefore necessary to talk the mattei- over by going 
to see him at Newnham. Sunday intervening I 
went as usual to the " early Celebration " at the 
mission chapel. The service was about to begin 
when through some mysterious agency I was com- 
pelled to rise from my knees and walk out of 
church. Wondering what could be the matter with 
me, I went home and made no further attempt 
that day to go to church. 



34 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

On the following morning I started from my 
home for Newnham Paddox, Lord Denbigh's seat 
and my brother's home. It was a dull looking 
morning and as I walked through the park at 
Newnham I was puzzled at the miserable look of 
the presbytery, for every blind was drawn down. 
Passing through the little gate into the pretty gar- 
den I stood at the door full of delight at the thought 
of the surprise I was about to give my beloved 
brother. I rang the bell and a Sister of Charity 
answering it I asked to see Father Martin. She 
looked oddly at me and said: 

'' Father Martin is dead." 

" No ! " I exclaimed, and the housekeeper being 
in the hall stopped her from saying more for she 
knew me by a photograph he had shown her. 

They took me into his little study where doubt- 
less untouched since he had written to me were 
the pen and material as he had laid them down. 
And standing on the table was the magnificent 
crucifix, given to him at his ordination. I fixed 
my eyes blinded wnth tears upon this source of con- 
solation, for the blow was heavy. All present tried 
to comfort me ; but I was dumb under the Hand of 
God. 

When the Sisters took me to the upper room 
and I once again saw my beloved brother, so truly 
did I realize his priesthood, his beautiful face re- 
flecting a heavenly peace as he lay there in the 
grandeur of rich sacred vestments, that a reality 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 3$ 

such as I had never known completely quieted the 
feelings of nature. " A real priest," I remarked, 
" and far, far beyond all earthly suffering." Hard 
as it was to see him gone there was much consola- 
tion in this thought. I then went to the convent 
chapel which was at that time used as a parish 
church. As I entered the first thing that attracted 
my notice was a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual 
Succour. A lamp was burning before it and on 
each side was a lighted candle. Here was a 
precious thought ! My mention of my birthday gift 
had gone deeper than I had imagined — here was 
evidence of his desire for rny conversion. 

On the day of the funeral, the Requiem Mass 
seemed to bring him very near to me. The church 
to which I belonged would not own all this but 
I loved the Blessed Sacrament and the light was 
dawning on my soul. I had never before been 
present at a Requiem Mass, and now it was sung 
at the altar where my dear brother had given his 
Hfe for his flock. '* How can this but be truth? " 
I asked myself. 

In spite of my convictions it was some time 
before I emerged from darkness into light. I had 
resolved to go to the Brompton Oratory to see a 
priest when I was told by the superior of the 
Order of Reparation that I must stop and consider 
what I was doing for I was in the greatest peril. 
" Only the other day," said he in the most solemn 
manner, " in the cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, 



36 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

the Holy Eucharist was offered to a woman — to 
the Blessed Virgin ! You look astonished, but it is 
a positive fact that the Roman Catholics do this." 

'* Can it be possible ! " I replied, earnestly de- 
siring not to believe it. I left with a heavy heart. 
I w^as in London, and my first thought was to go 
home and remain in the Church of England, but 
I was too sad and happily I decided to go and see 
Lady Denbigh who was then in town and ask her 
to tell me the plain truth. She was at home, and 
I had not been there long when Lord Denbigh came 
into the room. Lady Denbigh told him the story 
and I shall never forget his look. It made me 
ashamed of having mentioned it. He held up both 
hands and exclaimed : " How can any sane man 
believe such a lie! If any priest in our Church 
ever attempted such an awful thing as to offer 
the Holy Sacrifice to the Mother of God, he would 
be excommunicated on the spot." And in his own 
saintly way he went on to explain how impossible 
it was for such a blasphemous proceeding to take 
place at any time. 

I was more than satisfied. The one stumbling 
block was removed. The heavy burden that had 
bowed me down with sorrow when I entered that 
house was now forever lifted from me and I was 
soon after received into the Church — a most happy 
convert. As Lady Georgiana Fullerton beautifully 
expressed it my conversion was " my brother's 
legacy." 



GEORGE J. BULL, M.D., 

NEW YORK AND PARIS. 

Oculist. 

I was born at Hamilton, Canada. My parents 
were Irish Protestants, active members of the Low 
Church party in the Church of England. 

Naturally I was brought up in the religion of 
my family. I can still remember myself at my 
mother's knee hearing stories from the Bible. She 
brought me up most carefully, and if, as the years 
passed by, I became less attached than she was to 
the Church of England, certainly it was not her 
fault. 

As soon as I knew how to read I was given 
books, several of which had a decidedly anti-Cath- 
olic tendency. I can remember in one of them find- 
ing Luther represented as a man without reproach, 
worthy of imitation. My school books had a dis- 
tinctly Protestant bias. 

At Sunday-school I received instruction in the 
catechism of the Church of England, which, I may 
say in passing, appeared to me the most uninterest- 
ing of books. I gained some knowledge of the 
Bible, especially of the Old Testament, whether 
it was my fault or that of my teacher I cannot say, 
but certainly I had little admiration for the Bible. 

37 



38 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

I was taught that my religion was founded on 
the Bible, and it was pointed out to me that in 
the Bible could be found a formal condemnation 
of the Church of Rome. 

I can still remember how I gazed with curious 
eyes at a text written in large capitals in the book 
of Revelation, Mystery Babylon the Great, 
etc., and when I asked the meaning of this my 
teachers told me it meant the Church of Rome, 
which indeed was no better than she ought to be. 
It was but natural that I should have felt something 
like hatred for the Church thus stigmatized by the 
Bible. I have learned later, after careful study of 
the question, that the Protestant interpretation of 
this text is false. The unprejudiced person, who 
examines the Protestant Bible in good faith, will 
not find in its pages an argument against the Catho- 
lic Church. Prejudiced enemies of the Church have 
given a false meaning to the words of the prophets 
and unreasoning men who have not examined the 
question go on propagating the untruth, not know- 
ing the evil that they do. 

It might never have occurred to me to question 
the truth of the religion I had been taught, but 
when I was 15 or 16 years of age my faith was 
somewhat shaken. I had gone to pass the holidays 
with one of my father's friends, a Protestant, a 
learned and distinguished man, for whom I had a 
great respect and a certain admiration. In speak- 
ing with me one day he said that no enlightened 



^OME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 39 

man could believe the teaching of the churches — 
that would do very well, he added, for women and 
children, but not for men like him. His words 
made a deep impression on me. 

About this time at the High School in Montreal, 
my schoolfellows lent me one or two immoral 
books, among others a book which was published 
as the true story of Maria Monk, a woman who said 
she escaped from a convent in Montreal, and pre- 
tended to expose the immorality of Catholic priests 
and nuns. This book is untrue from beginning 
to end. The Catholic Truth Society has published 
a pamphlet exposing the falsehoods of the book; 
but, as Cardinal Newman pointed out in his " Lec- 
tures on the Present Position of Catholics in Eng- 
land," true testimony cannot remove the evil effects 
of misrepresentation and falsehood. The effect of 
such books is pernicious, even from the point of 
view of morality, but the object desired is reached, 
— the mind of the reader is poisoned against the 
Catholic Church. A little later when I became a 
medical student I looked askance at the Catholic 
priests I met, and when I passed a Convent I thought 
only of the iniquity of its inmates. Although I 
found little charm in my religion I was quite dis- 
posed to take sides with the Protestant party. 

Several of my acquaintances had formed new 
anti-Catholic societies; others joined the Orange 
Lodges. I do not know what prevented me, but 
happily I joined none of these bodies. 



40 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

As I went on with my medical studies at McGill 
College, Montreal, I went to Church with my family 
on Sundays at the Protestant Cathedral but with no 
spiritual advantage. 

From time to time it happened that I heard free- 
thinkers and Unitarians enlarge upon their doc- 
trines, and I sometimes questioned myself whether 
we were in possession of the truth. I became little 
by little persuaded that if I studied the foundations 
of the Church of England I should become a free- 
thinker, and I wished to keep my faith. I remained 
a member of the Church of England but without 
conviction. 

Leaving Canada I practised medicine in the 
United States. After several years of active prac- 
tice I was obliged to go to the Rocky Mountains 
to regain my health, which had been impaired by 
over-work. Here I had more time for reflection, 
and occasionally spoke with others whose faith 
was quite as uncertain as my own. The Church 
of England, the only one with whose doctrines I 
was familiar, satisfied me less and less. I read 
much, and among the books which fell into my 
hands whose doctrines were familiar to me were sev- 
eral pamphlets by Felix Adler of New York, 
founder of the Society for Ethical Culture, and by 
Salter, one of his disciples, director of the Chicago 
branch of that society. Salter in one of his lec- 
tures speaks of prayer as presumptuous and selfish. 
It is, said he, presumptuous in a mortal to address 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 41 

the Infinite; it is selfish to ask for favours which, 
perhaps, others may never have. I was pleased to 
find so high-sounding a reason for the abandon- 
ment of prayer. My faith, never firmly established, 
was not long in disappearing altogether. 

In 1883 I went to live in New York, to devote 
myself to the study of diseases of the eye. I stayed 
in that city for three years, during which I was 
much interested in the work of the Society for 
Ethical Culture. I learned that Felix Adler, son 
of a rabbi, had been sent to Germany to prepare 
himself to become the rabbi of the most important 
Jewish temple in New York. In Germany he lost 
faith in all revealed religion, and on his return 
to New York founded the society for Ethical Cul- 
ture. Every Sunday Adler gave a lecture in a pub- 
lic hall in New York on some moral subject. His 
audience was composed for the most part of Jews 
who had given up their religion. The society had 
established many philanthropic works, schools, or- 
phan asylums, etc., from which all mention of the 
name of God was rigorously excluded. Adler de- 
nied any direct revelation of God to man. He 
would not be held himself by any creed. One day, 
however, he said : — '' If you would know my creed, 
it is this. I believe in the supreme excellence of 
righteousness. I believe that in maintaining and 
fulfilling the law of righteousness man is sanctified 
in the service of the unknown God." 

Adler seldom allowed himself to use the word 



42 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

God. He preferred to use such terms as the In- 
finite, the Perfect, to avoid the suggestion of any 
idea of personaHty in the Godhead. He did not 
admit that man could address himself to God in 
habitual prayer. At most, he said, one might pray 
in a moment of exaltation caused by some beautiful 
spectacle in nature, such as one might see from a 
mountain top. " Our conscience," said he, " tells 
us we must do what is just. If we have not faith 
in this moral law, our life on earth is without ob- 
ject, and the sufferings we endure are a cruel 
mockery. We must feel that there is a harmony 
between the order of nature and our moral instincts. 
Such a law is the essential basis of ethical religion." 

I followed Adler's lectures with the greatest in- 
terest. He turned again and again to the thought 
that we must listen attentively to the voice of con- 
science and seek to make it more sensitive, instead 
of stifling it as is commonly done. 

All the churches, said he, make their morality 
depend on their religious dogmas. The very oppo- 
site should be the case. Religion should be the 
consequence of morality. When a man has spent 
his time in bettering the condition of the poor, when 
he has become the support of the widow and the 
orphan, when he has sought to perfect, from the 
moral point of view, his relations with his fellows, 
his good works have lifted him up. Then, like 
a traveller who has reached a certain height on a 
mountain side, he may leave at his feet the little 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 43 

things of life, and looking out on the distant scene 
may conceive some faint idea of what it is to hold 
communion with the Infinite. It is in this that 
religion consists, but it is accessible to but few 
mortals. What is necessary for all is the interior 
reform of each individual and in consequence the 
general amelioration of society. I had no hopes 
of reaching the heights pointed out by Adler, but 
his eloquence charmed me; I was also attracted by 
his plans for the development of character and by 
the humanitarian side of his work. I joined the 
society and openly abandoned the Church of Eng- 
land. 

Up to this time I had given little attention to 
moral questions; but now I studied them with in- 
terest, this was certainly a step in advance. 

I became a friend of Adler's. The conversations 
I had with him and the studies I made at this time 
were not without influence on my character, and 
I still feel grateful to him for the help he gave 
my troubled conscience. 

But to-day, by the light of the true faith, I 
easily perceive the imperfections in Adler's moral 
system. However perfect may appear the morality 
preached by the reformers in natural religion one 
may always see egoism and pride hidden under a 
virtuous exterior. The Divine Master alone can 
teach humility, abnegation of self, true charity and 
the other Christian virtues; for only He can give 
man the grace necessary to practise them. 



44 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

In 1886 I came to Paris for the purposes of my 
profession. I naturally went to the Sorbonne, to the 
laboratory of ophthalmology then under the direc- 
tion of Dr. Javal, who received me kindly and soon 
offered me a place in his laboratory. Interesting 
studies, especially those connected with the con- 
struction of an optometer, led me to prolong my 
stay in the capital, and without having sought it I 
found myself presently the assistant of Dr. Javal in 
his private practice. Persuaded that I should find 
in France all facilities to perfect myself in my 
profession, happy and proud of the sympathy I met 
with among the French, I resolved to settle in 
Paris, there being no special reason why I should 
return to America. I passed the examinations at 
the school of medicine, obtained the diploma of 
doctor of medicine, and in 1889 began to practise 
on my own account. 

For several years I was absorbed by study and 
the work of my profession. I felt, however, a cer- 
tain void. The inspiration of Adler was wanting. 
I looked around me to find an interest in something 
equivalent to Adler's work, and with this object^ 
I examined the movement of the Positivists, but as 
all that they did seemed much less practical than 
our work in New York, I was little disposed to 
join them; I went to listen to Renan ; he was wholly 
unsatisfactory. I was always at the same point. 
Sometimes I tried to spread Adler's ideas amongst 
the students. I flattered myself I might lead them 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 45 

to change their Hves, but I must confess I had no 
success. One of them, urged by me to change his 
disordered life, repHed : " I prefer my pleasure to 
the servitude of your moral code. By what author- 
ity would you impose it?" I looked in vain for 
arguments to convince him. In reconsidering the 
matter after this long lapse of time I recognize that, 
in fact, if we do not consider conscience as the voice 
of God, its authority is null. 

From time to time I went on Sunday to the 
Episcopal church in the Avenue de I'Alma in the 
hope of finding something to uplift me, but I never 
gained there any strength, any elevation of spirit. 
As in the old days I left the church unhappy and 
discontented. But it never occurred to me to enter 
a Catholic church in my search for what was want- 
ing: the prejudices of my childhood and youth 
blinded me. 

In the month of October, 1889, an American 
lady, a Protestant, who had been my patient, spoke 
to me on the subject of religion; I was led to tell 
her something of my state of mind. She told me 
she quite agreed with my ideas, but had had much 
satisfaction in reciting a prayer which she would 
recommend to me, for she was sure it would please 
me. I replied that my prejudices would prevent my 
following her advice and I explained to her the 
objections to prayer, which I had learned in the 
Society for Ethical Culture. She did not insist 
further, but before leaving Paris in November she 



46 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

gave me a little note book in which she had written 
the following prayer : — 

" Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy serv- 
ants and kindle in them the fire of Thy Love. Send 
forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created and 
Thou shalt renew the face of the earth." 

I found this prayer beautiful, and neither selfish 
nor presumptuous. Perhaps if it had contained 
the word God, I should have rejected it, but al- 
though accepting Adler's ideas on the Infinite I had 
retained something of my early faith in a sovereign 
Spirit, to whom I saw no reason to refuse to address 
myself; and I promised to recite the prayer every 
day. 

I should doubtless soon have forgotten my prom- 
ise, but the recitation of this prayer acted upon me 
like a talisman; it always gave me a sensation of 
a certain elevation of spirit which did me good. I 
found myself saying the prayer many times a day, 
and every time its beneficent effect was felt ; it drove 
away my gloom and raised me above the little 
things of life. 

I had been reciting this prayer only a few weeks 
when I was invited by a medical man to pass the 
evening at his house with some of his friends. To 
my great surprise I found myself at a sort of 
prayer meeting. They began by singing a hymn, 
then a clergyman invited the company to kneel in 
prayer. I must confess I was annoyed; although 
reciting the invocation to the Holy Spirit I still 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 47 

considered myself an agnostic, and I was displeased 
that my host should place me in a false position. 
However, after a moment's hesitation I knelt with 
the others, but I did not pray. Before I could with- 
draw the minister began to read a chapter from 
the Epistles of Saint Paul. In spite of my ill hu- 
mour the words of Saint Paul appeared to me ad- 
mirable, from a moral and humanitarian standpoint 
they were finer than anything ever said by Adler. 

Next morning I wished to read the chapter in 
question in order to see whether it really merited 
the admiration with which it had inspired me. For 
this purpose I bought a Bible and looked through 
its pages to find the chapter, and although I did 
not find it, I was attracted at every moment by the 
beauty of other passages in the New Testament. 
Ever since my schooldays I had entirely abandoned 
the reading of the Bible; for the first time in my 
life and much to my surprise I was carried away 
by the reading of this book, which it seemed to me 
I had never seen. From that day I found myself 
often with the Bible in my hands. I made a more 
or less complete study of the New Testament, and 
discovered several important truths. 

I had been familiar from my youth with the doc- 
trine of the Unitarians, for whom Jesus Christ is 
only a man ; later I had been influenced by the writ- 
ings of the freethinkers, who pretend that the New 
Testament is but a collection of legends brought to- 
gether in the interest of priestcraft. But as I ad 



48 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

vanced in my studies every page of the New Testa- 
ment tore away the veil from before my eyes; I 
recognized the history as true. It is told in such 
a way as to leave no doubt as to the veracity of 
the story ; one knows instinctively that eye-witnesses 
are speaking. The life of the Apostles transported 
me with admiration; their zeal, their devotion, the 
firmness which they manifested in their teachings 
showed the Holy Spirit acting in them. In com- 
parison with such men, all that I had admired in 
the pretended reformers seemed unworthy of atten- 
tion. 

It was obvious to me from the Bible that Jesus 
of Nazareth was God. This fundamental truth 
fixed itself in my mind with a force that admitted 
of no resistance; the prejudices due to Unitarians 
and freethinkers disappeared forever. I observed 
how from the crowd which followed Him, Jesus 
had chosen and ordained His twelve Apostles to 
found a society, a Church. I should perhaps have 
remarked this important fact much less if I had not 
formerly been interested in the foundation of Ad- 
ler's society. I had been a witness of certain diver- 
gencies of opinion between the chief and his collab- 
orators, and I had seen the efforts of Adler to 
make adepts submissive to his doctrine. 

I remarked then that the society founded by 
Jesus Christ was established to last forever. I ob- 
served the care given by the Master in the instruc- 
tion of the first pastors of His church; how He 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 49 

took them apart to explain His doctrine saying : — 
" It is given unto you to know the Mysteries of the 
kingdom of Heaven." (St. Matthew xiii, 11). He 
exacted from His disciples a most perfect faith, 
even in circumstances where that faith seemed to 
be most in opposition to reason. In his sixth chap- 
ter, St. John records how after He had accom- 
plished the miracle of the multiplication of the 
bread, Christ announced a nourishment still more 
marvellous : — "I am the living bread which came 
down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread 
he shall live forever, and the bread that I will 
give is my flesh which I will give for the life of 
the world." At these words they disputed among 
themselves and left Him; The Gospel says ex- 
pressly : — " From that time many of his disciples 
went back and walked no more with Him." (St. 
John, vi, 66). In order to keep them, human wis- 
dom would have stopped and disguised the truth; 
but the Divine Master did not seek to keep those 
who would not believe. 

I do not know exactly if at the time when I read 
this chapter I fully understood its meaning; but 
to-day, instructed on the doctrine of the Eucharist, 
1 make this observation: the hearers of the words 
of Jesus Christ made no mistake as to their real 
sense. By these words, '' the bread that I will give 
is My flesh" (St. John vi, 51), they perfectly un- 
derstood that the Saviour did not speak figuratively, 
but literally. It was that which they refused to 



50 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

believe : " How," said they, " can this man give us 
His flesh to eat?" (St. John vi, 52). Far from 
correcting them in this, our Lord employed expres- 
sions (St. John vi, 53-58) still more clear and 
more energetic, that there might remain no doubt 
as to the true sense of His words. 

To be a member of the Church of Christ it was 
then necessary to believe all that Christ taught. 
No one had ever told me this; my Protestant in- 
structors, on the contrary, boasted of the breadth 
of their views on doctrinal questions. Adler also 
gave full liberty to his followers. 

If we admit the divinity of Jesus Christ, I said 
to myself, we must naturally accept His teachings; 
one is the logical consequence of the other. 

From a practical point of view the insistence of 
the Divine Master on the unity of His Church 
seemed to me of absolute necessity. Without that, 
how could this Church, according to the promise 
which He made to the Apostles, last until the end 
of the world? 

The prayer of Jesus Christ after the last supper 
at the most solemn moment of His life throws so 
clear a light upon this doctrine that I must quote 
it here in part. 

Lifting up His eyes to heaven, Jesus said : — 
" Father, the hour is come ; glorify Thy Son, that 
Thy Son also may glorify Thee. . . . 

" I have glorified Thee on the earth : I have fin- 
ished the work which Thou gavest me to do. . . . 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 5 1 

" I have manifested Thy name unto the men 
which Thou gavest me out of the world ; Thine they 
were, and Thou gavest them me ; and they have kept 
Thy word. . . . 

" I pray for them : I pray not for the world, 
but for them which Thou hast given me; for they 
are Thine. . . . 

" Holy Father, keep through Thine own name 
those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be 
one as We are. . . . 

** As Thou hast sent me into the world, even so 
have I also sent them into the world. . . . 

'' Neither pray I for these alone, but for them 
also which shall believe on me through their word. 

" That they may all be one ; as Thou, Father, art, 
in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in 
Us : that the world may believe that Thou hast sent 
me. 

** And the glory which Thou gavest me I have 
given them ; that they may be one, even as We are 
one; 

" I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be 
made perfect in one ; and that the world may know 
that Thou hast sent me. . . ." (St. John 
xvii.) 

This chapter and other similar passages produced 
a strong impression on my mind. I began to see 
that the Church founded by Jesus Christ must exist 
in our own days and bear through all the centuries 
the mark of a veritable unity; not a factitious or 



52 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

relative unity but an absolute one, as real as that 
which exists between God the Father and God the 
Son. 

Never in my youth had this thought been sug- 
gested to me. I had learned that Jesus Christ had 
come to redeem the world by His death; that He 
had given certain doctrines which each one might 
interpret as it pleased him; I had some vague idea 
of an apostolic succession in the Church of England ; 
but never had I been shown Jesus Christ accomplish- 
ing the work of which He speaks in the chapter- 
quoted (St. John, xvii, 4) that is to say, founding 
His Church. 

The Church then was a divine institution and 
must last forever ; such was the second capital truth 
which was borne in upon me. But where, after 
so many centuries, was this church to be found? 
One in its belief, so little like that which I knew, 
the Church of England — which allows its minis- 
ters to hold different and contradictory doctrines 
and whose members make a boast of the elasticity 
of their belief. 

Proceeding with the reading of the New Testa- 
ment I saw that Jesus after His resurrection com- 
pleted the instruction of His Apostles, promising 
them His Spirit to confirm them in their faith. He 
charged them to teach all nations : — " Go ye there- 
fore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the 
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost; teaching them to observe all things what- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 53 

soever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world." (St. 
Matthew xxviii, 19, 20.) 

The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles showed 
me a Church remaining united, in spite of innumera- 
ble difficulties; and again the thought came to my 
mind : — Where is that Church to-day ? 

Never did it occur to me to look for it among 
the Anglicans, the Methodists or the Presbyterians, 
still less among the Unitarians. Could it be the 
Catholic Church, I said to myself — the Church of 
Rome? But on that side, the wall of my former 
prejudice rose before me, and I went no further. 

It is well to remember that I was occupied by the 
work of my profession and by social obligations; 
from time to time only, in rare moments of leisure 
perhaps, I came back almost unconsciously to reli- 
gious questions. I do not remember whether I read 
the Bible regularly, but I continued to recite the 
prayer, *' Come Holy Spirit " because it brought me 
a certain calm, a certain satisfaction. In this way 
two years passed. 

In the month of December, 1891, I met a Protes- 
tant acquaintance passing through Paris. In the 
course of conversation we spoke of the importance 
of frequently reading the works of the best writers 
of our language, so as to avoid the danger of fall- 
ing into the English of the newspapers or the faulty 
language of the Anglo-French colony. " For my 



54 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

part," said my friend, " I never travel without a 
copy of Newman's Oxford University Sermons. 
They are the purest modern EngHsh I know." (J. 
H. Newman. " Oxford University Sermons," Riv- 
ingtons, London, 1890.) 

The next day I received from my friend a copy 
of this book. In looking over it I found that the 
author had written these sermons when he was still 
a clergyman of the Church of England. I re- 
marked, as had my friend, that the purity of the 
language was exquisite, but I was soon more inter- 
ested in the subjects treated. Most of these ser- 
mons speak of the relation between faith and reason. 
Newman shows that conscience is the essential prin- 
ciple and sanction of religion in the mind. " Con- 
science," said he, ''implies a relation between the 
soul and a something exterior, and that, moreover, 
superior to itself; a relation to an excellence which 
it does not possess, and to a tribunal over which it 
has no power. . . . Moreover, since the in- 
ward law of Conscience brings with it no proof of 
its truth, and commands attention to it on its own 
authority, all obedience to it is of the nature of 
Faith." (Op. cit. pp. 18, 19. " Sermon on the in- 
fluence of natural and revealed Religion respec- 
tively.") 

Newsman points out how Natural Religion, such 
as the Systems of heathen philosophers, failed in 
practical effect, and how Revealed Religion supplies 
the deficiency. He explains that a Revelation is 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 55 

needful for man, and that Faith working by Love 
enables man to apprehend the truths of Revelation. 
Faith is regarded in Scripture as the chosen instru- 
ment connecting heaven and earth — as a principle 
of action most powerful in the influence which it 
exerts upon the heart. '' Though faith is the simple 
lifting of the mind to the Unseen God, without con- 
scious reasoning or formal argument, still the mind 
may be allowably, nay, religiously engaged, in re- 
flecting upon its own Faith; investigating the 
grounds and the object of it, bringing it out into 
words, whether to defend, or recommend, or teach 
it to others." (Op. cit., p. 253.) 

St. Pfeter tells us in the first of the Epistles : — 
"Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts; and be 
ready always to give an answer to every man that 
asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with 
meekness and fear." (I Peter iii, 15.) In this text, 
Peter ' gives us a precept, which implies, in order to 
its due fulfilment, a careful exercise of our Reason, 
an exercise both upon Faith, considered as an act 
or habit of mind, and upon the Object of it. We 
are not only to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts, 
not only to prepare a shrine within us in which our 
Saviour Christ may dwell and where we may 
worship Him ; but we are so to understand what we 
do, so to master our thoughts and feelings, so to 
recognize what we believe and how we believe, so 
to trace out our ideas and impressions and to con- 
ternplate the issue of them, that we may be " ready 



56 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

always to give an answer to every man, that asketh 
us, an account of the hope that is in us.' " (Op. 
cit., p. 253.) 

" Though in all cases a reasonable process, Faith 
is not necessarily founded on investigation, argu- 
ment or proof; these processes being but the ex- 
plicit form which the reasoning takes in the case 
of particular minds." (Op. cit., p. 262, *' Sermon 
on Implicit and Explicit Reason.") 

Newman speaks of Faith as one of St. Peter's 
characteristics. '' His Faith was ardent, keen, 
watchful and prompt. It dispensed with argument, 
calculation, deliberation and delay, whenever it 
heard the voice of its Lord and Saviour : and it 
heard that voice even when its accents were low, or 
when it was unaided by the testimony of the other 
senses. . . . When Christ asked the Twelve 
whether they would leave Him as others did, St. 
Peter said : — ' Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou 
hast the words of eternal hfe; and we believe and 
are sure that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
Living God ' ... If ever Faith forgot self, 
and was occupied with its Great Object, it was the 
faith of Peter. If in anyone Faith appears in con- 
trast with what we commonly understand by Rea- 
son, and with Evidence, it so appears in the instance 
of Peter." (Op. cit, pp. 251, 252.) 

In another sermon Newman points out that our 
attitude towards the truths of Faith depends upon 
our moral state. ** A good and a bad man will think 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IX AMERICA 57 

very different things probable. In the judgment of 
a rightly disposed mind, objects are desirable and 
attainable which irreligious men will consider to be 
but fancies." (Op. cit., p. 191, ''Faith and Rea- 
son, contrasted as Habits of Mind.") The author 
quotes St. Paul as teaching that " a certain moral 
state, and not evidence, is made the means of gain- 
ing the Truth and the beginning of spiritual perfec- 
tion." (Op. cit., p. 237, ''Love, the Safeguard of 
Faith against Superstition.'') 

And as I learned from these sermons of Newman 
that Faith is something different from what I had 
supposed, the thought came to me that I, too, might 
some day after all, have the gift of Faith. 

Several friends to whom I had spoken of New- 
man's sermons told me of the beautiful hymn he had 
written: "Lead Kindly Light." 

I procured a copy of the hymn and committed it 
to memory. It touched my heart and I recited it 
daily in connection with the prayer to the Holy 
Spirit. I was not aware of it at the time, but to- 
day I see clearly that I was taking without suspect- 
ing it the best means of obtaining faith: I was 
making a direct appeal to the Holy Spirit to obtain 
the gift. (Newman's Hymn is in fact the cry of 
a soul in distress. In 1833, ^vhen he wrote it, he 
was still a clergyman of the Church of England, per- 
plexed by doubts and wondering whether his Church 
was in the right way. In this hymn he implored 
the Holy Spirit to lead him on. And the light 



58 SOME. ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

came to him ; he '' did not sin against the light,'* but 
finally entered the Catholic Church.) This hap- 
pened early in 1892. It was at this time that I 
went again to the Episcopal Church in the Avenue 
de I'Alma and committed to memory the collect of 
the communion service : — " Almighty God, unto 
whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and 
from whom no secrets are hid ; Cleanse the thoughts 
of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, 
that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily mag- 
nify Thy Holy Name, through Christ, our Lord, 
Amen." 

Many years later in 1906, still marvelling at the 
beauty of this prayer, I made enquiries as to its his- 
tory, and learned that it is one of the prayers of 
the celebrant in the Sarum rite, and is also found 
at the end of a York litany. It is, therefore, a pre- 
reformation and Catholic prayer. 

Up to this time, I had never been attracted to- 
wards the Catholic Church : I knew this Church 
only by the evil which I had heard or read of it. 
But soon after I began to recite Newman's hymn I 
became aware that my thoughts were turning in 
a new direction; something independent of my will 
seemed to impel me to enquire into the doctrines of 
the Catholic Church. 

This curious feeling returning to me again and 
again, I spoke of my state of mind to a lady, one 
of my Catholic friends, who at once sent me a Cath- 
olic Catechism. It seemed to me strange enough 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 59 

that she should give me a catechism — I had not 
forgotten the uninteresting catechism of my child- 
hood; however, I read the book carefully and to 
my surprise found myself able to accept most of its 
teaching. It is true that the doctrine with regard 
to punishment after death seemed to me objection- 
able; but I admitted at once that if these doctrines 
were formulated by the^ Church founded by Jesus 
Christ I was obliged to accept them. 

It now appeared absolutely necessary to deter- 
mine whether the Catholic Church is the Church 
founded by Jesus Christ. To hear something of 
this Church I went to Mass at the Chapel of the 
Fathers of the Assumption in the Rue Frangois ler. 
It was a low Mass, and I was disappointed in not 
hearing what the priest said. The better to under- 
stand the service I procured a missal, and with it 
I went three times to a Sunday Mass in the Con- 
vent of the Ladies of the Assumption in the Rue de 
Lubeck. I was deeply impressed by the ceremonies 
and by the devotion of the congregation. 

A little later I went to the Church of the English 
Passionist Fathers in the Avenue Hoche, and met 
Father Matthew; whom I asked to give me some 
books on Catholic doctrine. He gave me the story 
of the conversion of a bishop of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church of the United States. (" The Trials 
of a Mind," by Dr. Ives, Bishop of North Caro- 
lina.) It seemed to me not exactly what I wanted; 
I was ill-disposed to listen to arguments, what I de- 



6o SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

sired was to learn, simply whether the Catholic 
Church merited admiration, or whether she was the 
evil thing that I had been, told of in my childhood. 
However, I read the book and at once became in- 
terested in the questions of controversy that were 
treated in it. Father Matthew after this gave me 
several other books. I read them all with satisfac- 
tion: their tone was admirable. I had not in the 
least abandoned the critical spirit which is natural 
to me, but I found nothing to criticise in these 
books. The subjects of controversy were discussed 
in them with a frankness to which my Protestant 
reading had not accustomed me. Corresponding 
Protestant books misrepresent the doctrines that 
they desire to discredit; the Catholic authors which 
I have studied discuss these questions with frank- 
ness and without quibbling. 

I discovered from my reading that the opinions 
which had spontaneously come to my mind while 
reading the Bible were precisely the fundamental 
doctrines of the Catholic Church. 

The Bible had shown me Jesus Christ founding 
a society, a body, of which all the members must 
be in communion and in perfect unity of faith. 
This society was to have continued through all ages 
even to the end of the world. I had seen Jesus 
Christ choosing one of His xA.postles to be the head 
of His Church, and now I found in the Church, the 
history of which I was studying, the marks indicated 
by the Bible. I beheld this Church teaching, al- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 6l 

ways, in all countries, with the authority which had 
been conferred upon her by Jesus Christ Himself; 
the bishops and priests exercising their ministry as 
the Apostles had done before them, and always 
above them all the Pope, recognized by them as the 
head of the Church. The writings of the Fathers 
of the Church and the decisions of the councils were 
a proof of this; in spite of heresies and attacks of 
all sorts the Church had always maintained the su- 
premacy of the Pope, successor of St. Peter: the 
rock, the safeguard of unity. And then came back 
to mind the words of Jesus Christ to him of the 
Apostles, whom He established head of the early 
Church : " And I say also unto thee, that thou art 
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; 
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom 
of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth 
shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (St. 
Matthew xvi, i8, 19.) 

My studies showed me later the Councils and the 
Pope explaining the sacred text under the direction 
of the Holy Spirit; (St. John xvi, 12, 13; xiv, 26), 
developing it sometimes in the form of dogma, with- 
out changing any of the fundamental beliefs taught 
by Christ, and making that Church sufficiently pow- 
erful to preserve it from what is called the spirit of 
the age. It was necessary to express explicitly cer- 
tain truths deposited in germ by our Lord in the 



62 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

minds of the Apostles. The first Creed had shown 
the behef of the Church in these words : — " I be- 
Heve in the Holy Catholic Church." A little later, 
in the year 325, the council of Nice considered it 
necessary to explain the statement more clearly, and 
they expressed themselves as follows : — '' I believe 
in the Church which is One, Holy, Catholic and 
Apostolic." And in like manner during the course 
of the centuries the Church has continued to develop 
its doctrine. 

My studies in history persuaded me that the Cath- 
olic Church was the one which Jesus Christ had 
founded, and my observations showed me clearly 
that my early prejudices were not founded on truth : 
I was by this time certain that the Catholic Church 
was calumniated by her enemies, for I discovered 
a Church holy not only in its doctrine, but in its 
ministers and in its members. 

It was at this time that I called upon Father 
Matthew of the English Passionists, and asked him 
to kindly prepare me to enter the Catholic Church. 

In the month of July having fallen ill I was 
obliged to go to the South of France, but my reli- 
gious instruction as a catechumen had come to an 
end, and I did not wish to leave Paris without hav- 
ing made my submission. I told my mother of this 
great act in the letter which follows. I should add 
that I was seriously ill at this time ; for this explains 
why I said so little about so important an event. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 63 

Arcachon, August 5th, 1892. 

*' I am living in a pine forest near the sea coast, 
having come here to get rid of a cough v^hich a few 
weeks ago seemed to indicate a return of the lung 
disease that twelve years ago took me to Colorado. 
My health is improving and I hope to resume my 
work in Paris in October. 

" Naturally I was unwilling to leave Paris with- 
out being received into the Catholic Church: I 
therefore made my profession of faith on July 25th 
in the Church of the English Passionists and was 
baptized conditionally. I am truly happy at the 
grace that has been given me. Many times lately 
when I awoke in the night burning with fever I 
said to myself : — ' I am a Catholic ! ' and instantly 
my spirits rose and I was comforted." 

The following letter shows that I was regaining 
strength, for I enter upon certain dogmatic ques- 
tions. 

Arcachon, August 13th, 1892. 

" I believe that our Lord came upon earth to 
found a Church and that to establish it on a solid 
foundation He gathered around Him chosen men, 
whom He instructed daily with the greatest care. 
He placed Peter at the head of this Church, and 
it is truly marvellous that to-day, after nineteen 
centuries, this Church exists stronger than ever, 
more ancient than any other government of Europe, 
showing clearly that Christ has kept His promise to 



64 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

be with it always even to the end of the world. 
Assuredly the Holy Spirit has always guided the 
Church, and will guide it always. . . . 

" It occurs to me that you said in one of your 
dear letters, quoting a well known text, is there not 
one mediator only between God and man, the Lord 
Jesus Christ ? Yes, certainly there is but one medi- 
ator of REDEMPTION ; but there may be many 
intercessors. You, for instance, make intercession 
for me when you pray for me. And so St. Paul 
frequently asked for the prayers of the faithful in 
his behalf. St. John (Revelation v, 8), speaks of 
the saints before the throne of God, praying for 
their earthly brethren. * The four and twenty an- 
cients fell down before the Lamb, having every one 
of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, 
which are prayers of the saints ' (see also Zach. i, 

12, 13)- 

" It has ever been the practice of the Church, 
guided by the Holy Spirit, to ask the saints in 
heaven to pray for the sinners on earth. There is 
proof given us every day that such prayers are an- 
swered. I delight to ask the Blessed Virgin to 
pray for me. We never ask the saints to give us 
anything, but simply to help us with their prayers. 

" It is fearful to think how the Church of God 
has been misrepresented by her enemies. I am 
amazed when I consider that I have lived more than 
40 years in absolute ignorance of the Church; an 
ignorance due to early prejudice confirmed by the 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 65 

foolish remarks of persons as ignorant as myself. 
It never once occurred to me to consider that the 
claims of the Catholic Church might be valid, until 
in answer to my prayer to the Holy Spirit I was 
given the impulse to search for the truth in the 
right direction. I then asked to see a Catholic cate- 
chism and lo! there was nothing in it to which I 
could object. I have read many Catholic books 
since then and have not a word of criticism to offer, 
but the remarkable fact I would bring out strongly 
is that my conversion occurred before I had read a 
word in favour of the Catholic Church, and no per- 
sonal influence whatever was brought to bear on me. 
I simply asked the Holy Spirit to teach me to love 
God and my neighbour, and behold the Holy Spirit 
answered me : — ' There is only one way ; the 
Church will show it to you.' 

" I do not wish to make myself out a remarkable 
person. I only know that the Holy Spirit has an- 
swered me and will always answer if I pray aright, 
and I rejoice! . . .' 

" Every Protestant has heard from his childhood 
of the Catholic Church only as a hot-bed of perdi- 
tion. Interpreting the Bible to suit their fancy, 
Protestants give it sometimes quite fantastic mean- 
ings, sometimes to suit the needs of their cause. 
It is in this way that they have declared the Church 
of Rome to be the Babylon anathematised by the 
Apostle Saint John, and one finds in their Bible 
a certain text printed in large capitals : — ' And 



66 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, 
Babylon the Great, etc., etc.,' (the Revelation of 
St. John xvii, 5 ) . 

" Why this text in large capitals ? 

" In order to study this question I have examined 
at the National Library in Paris many Bibles, Prot- 
estant as well as Catholic, of various dates and in 
many languages, and have observed that thi^ text 
is not printed in capitals in any of the ancient Bibles, 
or in modern French and German Bibles. It is 
printed in capitals only in certain English Bibles, 
namely in the King James Bible (authorized edition 
published for the British and Foreign Bible Soci- 
ety), and in the Revised Edition (printed for the 
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in 1881). 
And yet certain Anglican theologians do not hesi- 
tate to write that Saint John traced this text in big 
capitals with his own hand to stigmatize the Church 
of Rome. 

'' I lately put this question to a Protestant minis- 
ter : — ' I cannot tell you,' replied he, ' but you know, 
of course, what is meant by these words ? ' . . . 
and as I begged him to explain further — ' why it is 
the Church of Rome,' said he, ' and Saint John 
could not condemn this corrupt Church too 
strongly.' And thus it is that the false interpreta- 
tion given to Holy Scripture by misguided men has 
been handed down from generation to generation 
and is still accepted in good faith by simple people. 
And nevertheless whoever wishes to give himself 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 67 

the trouble of examining the question, will recog- 
nise easily that the explanation given by Protestants 
is in flagrant contradiction with the prophecies of 
Isaiah and the promise of our Lord. 

" All the Fathers of the Church have agreed that 
pagan Rome is the Babylon spoken of by Saint 
John. In the second century, for example, Ter- 
tuUian wrote that the word Babylon designated pa- 
gan Rome, persecutor of the Christians. (Sic et 
Babylon apud Joannem nostrum^ Romance urbis 
Hgiira estj proinde et magnoe, et regno superboe, et 
sanctorum debellatricis. TertuL, " Ad versus Mar- 
cionem, lib. Ill, cap. XIII. Paris 1674, pp. 404- 
405). And up to the eleventh century, no one 
dreamed of giving any other interpretation to the 
words of Revelation. 

" In the eleventh century the Albigenses, wishing 
to find a weapon against the Church which had con- 
demned their heresy, were the first to suggest that 
the Church of Rome might be meant by the Babylon 
of the Book of the Revelation. Protestants of all 
sects, notwithstanding that they pretend to accept no 
tradition, hold fast to this one and continue even in 
our own time to teach this erroneous interpretation. 

'' For Catholics, who always bear in mind the 
promises of Jesus Christ and the example of the 
Saints who have succeeded one another without in- 
terruption in the long course of the centuries — 
who have the certainty of the constant presence of 
our Lord upon the altars in the Blessed Sacrament, 



68 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

it is almost impossible to believe that Protestants 
can be in good faith when they attribute to the 
Roman Church the anathema of Saint John against 
pagan Rome. Catholic authors have nevertheless, 
taken into serious consideration the attacks of 
Protestants on this subject, and have completely 
demolished this heretical tradition. Bossuet, among 
others, has written at great length on the subject 
quoting Saint Peter and many Fathers of the 
Church of the first centuries who naturally desig- 
nated the city of Rome, or pagan Rome, under the 
name of Babylon. He reproduces the prophetic 
words of Saint John concerning the fall of the 
Roman Empire. 

'' One of the best refutations of the error of which 
I speak was written by Newman in his essay on 
'The Protestant Idea of Antichrist' ('The 
Protestant idea of Antichrist " Essays Critical and 
Historical, vol. 2). He was still a clergyman of 
the Church of England, but he makes it obvious that 
the Church of the middle ages so maligned by 
Protestants, was clearly the kingdom of Christ, 
foretold by the prophets, in particular by Isaiah. 
Newman's conclusion is that the words of St. John 
in the book of Revelation, of St. Paul in the Epis- 
tles, and of Daniel in the Prophecies, ' which relate 
to Antichrist, cannot by any sober mind be applied 
to the ecclesiastical events or persons of the past ages 
of Christianity.' " 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 69 

It is now fifteen years since I became a Catholic ; 
and every day I appreciate more and more the bless- 
ing- of the true faith. 

When I was a freethinker, I had no conception of 
truth, nor of the practical utility of certain of the 
fundamental virtues of Christianity. To illustrate 
my meaning I may mention that when I was living 
in the Rocky Mountains, and one of my friends gave 
me a copy of the " Imitation of Christ," this beau- 
tiful book displeased me in many of its pages ; what 
it said of humility had no meaning for me. It 
was the opposite frame of mind, of pride, which 
seemed to help me most, and keep me from certain 
faults. 

Why then, after receiving so many signs of His 
bounty, shall I not thank God for admitting me to 
His Church. In the words of Saint Augustine I 
may say : — " I have loved Thee late, oh beauty so 
ancient, and yet so new ! I have loved Thee late ! " 

How exquisitely beautiful is this divine Church 
as compared to the human institution I knew in my 
early years. It is not the external pomp of worship 
which attracts me, not the beauty of sights or 
sounds; for a simple prayer in a village church has 
the same effect as a visit to a cathedral ; I feel that 
God is truly there and never have I gone away with- 
out finding the consolation and the blessing I have 
sought. 

Is it not reasonable then, in looking at the past, 
to attribute all this transformation to the little 



70 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

prayer to the Holy Spirit which I recited before my 
conversion without knowing that I was following in 
this a Catholic practice? The prayer. I used is, in 
fact, a liturgical prayer, part of the office for Whit- 
sunday, and, for ages, it has been recited every day 
by thousands of the faithful before going to their 
work. It is to it I am indebted for all the joys I 
enjoy in the service of God; it is the Holy Spirit, 
who has led me to the Church of Christ so long 
unknown to me, and for which, to-day, if it were 
necessary, I would gladly give up my life. 

To all who desire the light, I recommend the 
prayer: — ''Come Holy Spirit," and the hymn: — 
" Lead, kindly light." The gift of faith is always 
accorded to him who seeks the truth, and asks for 
it with humility. 

" Ask and it shall be given you," said our Lord: 
" Seek, and ye shall find." 



MISS EMMA FORBES GARY, 

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
(Sister-in-law of Professor Agassiz.) 

In 1854 Boston was still Old Boston, and the few 
dozen families who knew each other lived around 
the Common or on the streets that ran down Beacon 
Hill or meandered in the direction of the harbor. 

Every one went to church at King's Chapel or 
Trinity Church or the Old South. There was no 
Public Library or Art Museum, literature and art 
being combined in the Boston Atheneum. 

The Catholics had just passed through the 
" Know-Nothing " persecution, or, more strictly 
speaking, they were pulling their way through it 
with much courage and good temper. The " Know- 
Nothing " party was regarded with contempt by 
intelligent Protestants, and men of influence came 
forward boldly in defense of the Catholics. 

It was at that period of depression among Cath- 
olics that it was my good fortune to be received 
into the Church. 

There were few Catholic churches in Boston, only 
(as I remember them) the dear old Cathedral on 
Franklin street, St. Vincent's on Purchase street, 
and St. Mary's at the North End — the Jesuit 

71 



*J2 SOME ROADS TO ROIME IN AMERICA 

church. So it was not any esthetic fascination that 
could draw me Romeward. 

It must have been about the tenth of October, my 
twenty-first birthday, that my mother expressed 
dissatisfaction at my way of doing my hair, and 
said that H — R — must come and show me how- 
to make the puffs or bands or whatever girls wore 
at that time. I knew nothing of H — R— ^ and 
cared Httle for my coiffure, but I never disputed my 
mother's decisions. So, one morning there ap- 
peared in my room a lovely young woman who 
looked like a Fra Angelico angel. I can see her 
now, her rippling hair, her shining eyes and peach 
bloom complexion. Her mouth was beautiful, 
whether it expressed joy or grief or enthusiasm, or 
gave that enchanting laugh which only belongs to 
those of Celtic blood. I don't remember much about 
the hair-dressing, but I soon found out that H — 
R — was a Catholic, and possessed of faith such as I 
had never seen. We became intimate friends, and 
she took me with her to visit her sick poor, to whose 
desolate rooms she brought cheer and sunshine. 
Surely charity has not often appeared in such fas- 
cinating shape as it did when she encouraged the 
weary to bear their suffering a little longer, or 
taught the earth-bound soul to long for Heaven. 
Not long after this she founded a home for con- 
sumptives which has developed into a beautiful lit- 
tle hospital with every modern appliance for the cure 
of those who in 1854 were called incurable. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 73 

But not only did H — R — show me how to love 
and serve the poor, but she advised me to go and 
see Bishop Fitzpatrick, (Bishop John every one 
called him) — to consult him' about a charitable 
scheme of mine. 

I remember well the November day that I went to 
see him in the shabby old house opposite the Cathe- 
dral. I remember the grand looking man in a fkded 
purple garment who came into the room, where I 
had waited an unconscionable time. I remember 
that he spoke as one having authority and not as the 
Scribes and Pharisees. I soon entered on a course 
of instruction. The questions of that day were 
different from those of the Twentieth century. I 
read Father Hacker's " Questions of the Soul,'* 
Lamennais' " Essai sur ITndifference," and a good 
many papers of Brownson, and books of piety. On 
the other side, alack and well-a-day! I read Chil- 
lingworth, Bishop Hopkins, and some unsavory de- 
tails written by some apostate or other. What con- 
duced to my conversion was the fact that Protes- 
tants argued their cause by attacking Catholics, 
while Catholics explained dogmas, refuted slanders, 
but did not abuse or ridicule their opponents. In 
eleven months after my first visit to Bishop Fitz- 
patrick, I was received into the Church, on October 
4th, 1855. 

And how about persecution? I have never met 
with anything but affectionate courtesy from non- 
Catholics, and many of my relatives and friends 



74 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

came to see me received. Especially kind was the 
Rev. Frederick Huntington, afterwards Bishop of 
Central New York, who wrote most kindly to my 
parents, advising them not to oppose me, wisely 
adding " lest the zeal of opposition be added to the 
zeal of conversion.'* 

It may be asked why I was so easily persuaded 
to become a Catholic. A great prelate once told 
me that I had always been a Catholic. I received 
my religious instruction from my mother and my 
governess, Unitarians of the Channing school, full 
of spiritual feeling and of high ideals. As I grew 
older, I had a vague perception that this noble as- 
ceticism did not belong to Protestantism. My gov- 
erness read to me the Imitation of Christ, and a 
beautiful book of selections from Fenelon made by 
Mrs. Eliza Lee Pollen. There I found these lofty 
ideas where they seemed by right to belong. As 
if I had found a precious bit of mosaic and sought 
for the work of art from which it had been severed, 
I hid these maxims in my heart and pondered on 
them. Not that I acted on them, quite the con- 
trary; but they held up before me a standard that 
some day 1 meant to reach. And the day came 
when H — R — showed me where my precious 
fragment belonged. 

There is one result of my conversion in which I 
take an honest pride. It enabled me to teach the 
catechism to the Reverend Editor of the "Ave 
Maria.'* 



THE REV. B. STUART CHAMBERS, D.D., 

CHURCH OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT, NEW YORK. 

It is not without hesitation I offer to the Ameri- 
can " Roads to Rome " the contribution of my own 
spiritual itinerary, nor should I presume to do so 
but for the fear — may be a scruple — that other- 
wise, in the strange providence of God, some wan- 
dering soul might forever remain en route. 

It is an awful thing, as converts must know, to be 
tossed about on a religious sea by every wind of 
doctrine, with pilot, if any, more dependent upon 
us than we upon him ; awful, I say, even for Ameri- 
cans, fond, too fond as we are, of change of 
movement, and of the kind which leads nowhere in 
particular. But one tires sooner or later, in so far 
as one is sane, of travel and adventure, and longs 
to settle down in a permanent resting place; one 
yearns for a home of his own, religiously — though 
he may not know it — no less than domestically. 

To help, even in the most inefficient way, some 
restless young men to desire, if not actually to find, 
this home, is my apology for writing what other- 
wise would be far too personal and private, and 
precious (at least to myself), for print. 

At best only hints can be given, not only for lack 
of space, but because a conversion to the Roman 

75 



76 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Catholic Faith, if not a moral miracle, is never with- 
out its mystery ; theologically we here deal with the 
grace of God and man's free will — the Spirit blow- 
eth where it listeth — and psychologically we would 
attempt to describe the action of the Holy Ghost 
upon the human soul, a thing which defies analysis 
and transcends verbal expression. 

Hence the difficulty of thinking and speaking 
clearly on such a subject, the impossibility of unin- 
tentionally not offending, of not being misunder- 
stood by somebody, the non-Catholic or born Cath- 
olic or both. Few of us are able practically to dis- 
tinguish between systems and persons, and thus we 
take. or give offence, where none is meant, in re- 
ligious matters. 

On the Patronage of St. Joseph 1894, in St. Pat- 
rick's cathedral, New York, I was baptized and for- 
mally received into the Catholic Church by the Rev. 
Joseph H. McMahon. Just fourteen years ago 
therefore. 

Had anyone told me four years before that, that 
some day, however far-distant, I would be a reli- 
gious man, a Catholic and a priest I should have 
regarded the prediction as too absurd for attention. 
I was naturally interested, 'tis true, in philosophy, 
but of the modern Agnostical kind, interested in the 
meaning of life, the whence and the whither of my 
own existence; interested in literature, in art, in 
music, even in business, because I had to be; but 
interested in religion, in Christianity — never. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 77 

In the various Protestant churches to which I 
went when I felt like it, I found an edifying diver- 
sion and pleasant gathering of friends ; good music, 
a beautifully written if not always beautifully read 
service in the Episcopal Church, with too often a 
dry though fortunately short sermon; lots of senti- 
ment and emotion in the Methodist; frequently a 
dignified and scholarly discourse in the Presby- 
terian; and in the Unitarian a lecture of the intel- 
lectual 'Philosophical kind, most attractive of all to 
me (then), as I was reading Herbert Spencer; feel- 
ing myself very wise, in consequence and deciding 
that temperamentally I was non-religious. 

So far — I was about twenty-three — I had 
found in the non-Catholic world: ethics, aesthetics, 
society, emotions, sentiment and Agnostical phi- 
losophy. A defined theological system, explaining 
the creation, fall and redemption of man, together 
with his sanctification by means of a Church and 
sacraments, I knew not as I should, until by the 
merest chance I came in contact with Catholics, 
(fortunately representative ones), and the Catholic 
Church. This was in New York City where I had 
come to live. I had given up Herbert Spencer, by- 
the-way, not as mentally uninteresting but morally 
unsatisfying, my heart as well as my head had be- 
gun to crave food. A little book by the late Pro- 
fessor Drummond, " The Greatest Thing in the 
World " fell into my hands at the psychological mo- 
ment. Hitherto I had not been a gay or dissipated 



78 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

fellow especially, but an out-and-out worlding, am- 
bitious above all else, within the bounds of honor 
and honesty, to make money, to be a successful man 
from the worldly point of view, before men, in foro 
externo; thenceforth, with a happy inspiration like 
a rebirth of soul, I determined to be a good man, to 
find my happiness in love, in the charity as described 
by St. Paul in the xiii chapter of his First Epistle 
to the Corinthians, and as analyzed by Drummond. 
A capital idea in itself and pleasing to youth, but 
not easily realized — except in the ardent imagina- 
tion of the Sentimentalist, and I was never that, 
thank God — because it means the daily, nay, the 
hourly practice of patience, patience which is char- 
ity's first ingredient, Charity suffereth long and is 
patient. One must be patient in order to be kind. 
I tried and tried, again and again. No moral dis- 
cipline experienced since, even in the six years of a 
seminary at Rome, can compare with that I prac- 
tised upon my own soul at this period of my life. 
Soon I felt the need of supernatural help; of a force, 
(as I then expressed it) outside myself, which 
would sustain and supplement my own efforts at 
spiritual development. So I was confirmed in the 
Episcopal Church, by way of experiment. About 
this time I happened to form a friendship with a 
young man in many ways congenial, and a Catholic, 
practically the first I had ever known. We talked 
Church a good deal, since I had just been confirmed 
and was rather keen on the subject. I went to 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 79 

Mass with him once or twice on Sunday — to Sol- 
emn High Mass. It was about as interesting as a 
Chinese puzzle and quite as understandable. I de- 
termined, mainly from motives of curiosity, to 
find out what it was all about. And I did — thank 
God, I did — I found out what the Holy Sacrifice 
of the Mass meant, the idea of it all; the Blessed 
Sacrament with Christ really, objectively present on 
the Altar. Here was love indeed! Love only the 
heart of a God could conceive, only the omnipotence 
of a God effect. Here was God not as an abstract 
idea but a concrete reality; God Incarnate, Divine 
and Human, and never more divine than when most 
human. God living and dying not only at Jerusa- 
lem nineteen hundred years ago but here, hie et 
nunc, every day and every hour of every day ; here 
really present on the Altar for me, as though no one 
existed in the wide world for Him but me. Here 
was the Friend of Friends I could always and every- 
where, semper uhiqiie, count upon, and to the end, 
the only one. Here at last was the vital force to 
sustain when all else should fail; here the Eternal 
Spring to make a desert earth blossom like the 
rose! 

The Blessed Sacrament, the idea of it, thus elec- 
trified my whole being and took possession of it. 
How wonderful, how sublime — and how preposter- 
ous to my Protestant tendency of thinking it all 
away by the light (?) of a sophisticated reason. 
Had I not read Mr. Herbert Spencer? So mo- 



8o SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

mentarily dazed and thrilled as I was, I believed 
not at all. But in spite of everything, I could not 
help but want to believe; except of course becom- 
ing a " Romanist," which was quite out of the ques- 
tion; that was even more absurd than swallowing 
Transubstantiation, if one did not imply the other; 
thus with the average man do racial and social preju- 
dices outweigh theological difficulties. Besides the 
Anglican Church solved the question beautifully, so 
I began attending mass as one of English stock 
should do, in English at a very high Ritualistic 
church. But almost from the start .it seemed too 
tentative, too amateurish (I mean no offense) to 
fulfill my spiritual needs; at best it was a refined 
dress rehearsal of a much more real and bigger 
thing at St. Patrick's Cathedral. 

I had a real hunger and thirst for Christ really 
Present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the 
Sacrament of His Love. This was an appetite to 
be fed alone through faith, which faith,^ to be of the 
certitude necessary for real religious faith in any- 
thing, must be founded upon something deeper and 
stronger than the mere opinion of a few. I soon 
saw in the Episcopal Church that belief in the Real 
Presence w^as practically nothing more than a favor- 
ite opinion, at least, one not officially and publicly 
expressed by the Bishop; it was but a matter of 
taste for a relatively small number of Episcopalians 
who " liked that sort of thing." I demanded a 
greater certitude than this. The whole question 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 8l 

was too important to doubt about one way or the 
other. It was either true or it was false. I wished 
it to be true, such was the attitude of my will; a 
most important condition, by-the-way, as in the 
mysteries of faith the assent of the intellect to what 
is true is predetermined by the consent of the will 
to what is good. '' But is" it true? " I asked. No- 
body seemed to be sure but Rome. She alone gave 
a clear, definite and positive answer. And finally 
I believed Her, for She spoke as no one else ever 
speaks in religious matters, as one teaching with au- 
thority. 

If Christ be the Redeemer of men, I thought, 
and if He founded a Church at all (rather than 
churches, which is absurd) to represent Him, to 
apply to all men, collectively and individually, the 
fruits of His Redemption, that Church should 
surely know her own mind in a matter so spiritually 
vital as the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed 
Sacrament. It did not take me long to find that 
only Rome knew what she was talking about on this 
subject, so dear to my heart; nor was she less sure 
and explicit about anything else I wanted to know 
concerning God and my own soul. 

To go ahead one must first be sure he is right. 
For me to be anything at all religiously I must have 
some basis of certitude outside of, and above my- 
self, for my belief. Is it not true that outside the 
Rock of Peter, in matters of faith and consequently 
of morals, all else is shifting sand? I speak of 



82 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

systems not of persons. Take the Roman Catholic 
Church out of the ecclesiastical world and what 
have we left? There remains, to confine ourselves 
to this country, besides much that is nondescript, 
many eager, earnest men and women trying every- 
thing in the religious line but the right thing, people 
who because of their American nerves and energy, 
with a passion for modernity, are acting upon the 
plan that the latest thing is the best, because the 
latest; a false principle it is, and a dangerous thing 
in theology. Without Rome the very idea of a 
Visible, Universal and Permanent Church of Christ 
disappears altogether. What then is fundamentally 
necessary to the history, ancient and modern, of 
Christianity, I decided was also vitally necessary 
for my soul individually, if I was to be a Christian 
at all. 

This conviction, based rather upon reason as de- 
rived from practical experience than extensive read- 
ing, brought me to the Faith founded on him who 
himself had said to Christ, " Lord to whom shall 
we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." A 
remark occasioned in its time, significantly, by dififi- 
culties concerning the promise of this same Blessed 
Sacrament. Thus by the moral necessity of the 
Holy Eucharist was I brought to the Bark of Peter, 
wherein by the same impelling grace may I remain, 
till, crossing the bar, I hope to see my Pilot face to 
face; whatever the encircling gloom, may the Sanc- 
tuary Lamp be ever the Kindly Light to lead me on. 



MARGARET TERRY CHANLER, 

RED HOOK, NEW YORK. 

Wife of Winthrop Chanler, Esq., and sister of Mr, F. Marion 

Crawford. 

I was brought up in Rome under a rather feeble 
ministration of the AngHcan Church, which seemed 
always cold and empty beside the real Churches we 
constantly visited as children. As I grew older my 
indifference to Protestantism only increased. I felt 
there was but one living Church; outside of that 
was to be found only free thought, philosophical 
eclecticism, and a vague platonic idealism. For 
some time I did not wish to bind myself to any form 
of belief, preferring to drift from one poetical or 
scientific theory of the Universe to the other. All 
through these growing years, from fourteen to nine- 
teen, I read everything I could find in the way of 
philosophy and metaphysics; but, having no guide, 
my reading was very desultory. I think a pro- 
longed study of Dante's Divine Comedy was prob- 
ably laying in my mind the foundations of Catholic 
synthesis, although I did not know it till afterwards. 
Three years of Dante lessons with a learned Abbate 
Pagliari were very enlightening. I realized how 
vastly inclusive Catholic beUef could be ; how logical, 

83 



84 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

while it transcended all logic, how it ministered to 
all humanity with its divinity. 

After Dante, Pascal, St. Augustine, and the Imi- 
tation, were my teachers. It was always the note 
of intellectual helplessness, in the face of the eternal 
problems, that appealed to me in Pascal. '' // est 
bon d' etre fatigue et lasse par rimitile recherche du 
vrai hien, aiin de tendre les bras au Liherateiir." 

In St. Augustine the same lofty strain appears, 
joined to a more passionate intensity and a clearer 
vision. 

So the stream of my convictions came to me as 
rivulets from many sources. I made the acquaint- 
ance of Monsignor Puyol, the Superior of St. Louis 
des Frangais, in Rome. He with great kindness 
and patience gave me the necessary instruction, over- 
came my last scruples of doubt, and on the feast 
of St. Joseph, 1883, received me into the Church 
to which, by taste and inclination, I had belonged 
since my first childhood. 



HARRIET BREWER CHURCHILL. 

My early years were spent in that town near 
Boston where I was born. My father was of Pil- 
grim descent, his ancestors having come from the 
old England to the new in the early days of the 
Colony, some of them in the Mayflower. 

My mother on the contrary was of the Bay 
colony, with an ancestry of soldiers, and her grand- 
father and uncles took a leading part in our war 
of Independence and were officers in the army of 
General Washington. 

It will be seen that I came of stock that was not 
disposed to draw back when conscience was in 
question. But the peculiar tenets of the Puritans 
for which my forefathers braved the perils of the 
wilderness are dead and buried like themselves: 
while the Papacy w^hich saw them come has seen 
them go — into oblivion, while the Holy Father 
from the banks of the Tiber still rules a Church 
greater in numbers and more perfect in organiza- 
tion than at any time in the history of the world. 

I often think I should like to add to Lord 
Macaulay's famous passage and to say that when 
the New Zealander himself shall have passed away 
and his land be but a desert; when the inevitable 
catastrophe shall have occurred and this old earth 

85 



86 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

drifts a derelict in space, then and not till then will 
the Church militant have failed to exist. Then and 
not till then will the Sacraments cease to be ad- 
ministered and the Pope be no more. 

In the days of my childhood New England was 
divided into two great religious camps — those who 
believed in the Trinity and those who did not. 

My family was of the latter persuasion, Uni- 
tarians. That is to say it was in a church of that 
persuasion that we had our family pew but my 
father was an Agnostic, and admirer of Voltaire 
(whose works filled whole shelves in our library), 
of Buckle, Parker, Darwin, Huxley and the rest. 
His wife, my stepmother, was what is called an 
advanced Unitarian or Parkerite. 

It may be divined that in such an atmosphere 
-I was not oppressed with religious instruction. I 
was taught to tell the truth, and not to steal, etc., 
more as a matter of social polity than because lies 
and thieving were sins against the law of God. I 
was, I fear, a naughty little minx and never went 
to Sunday-School except for a few weeks before 
Christmas when the annual tree loaded with gifts 
loomed large in my expectations. I became then 
to all appearances a good little Unitarian. I re- 
member on one rare occasion my stepmother read 
aloud to me the famous chapter of St. Paul on 
charity, and I recall wondering at the time, why she 
should attach any importance to it unless she be- 
lieved that the Bible was an inspired work and 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 87 

the Word of God. Her idea seemed to be that 
it was " a beautiful chapter." But no more so than 
something from Marcus AureHus. I said that " if 
that was all there was to it there were other things 
more interesting." 

It was a little later than this that I astonished 
my family one day by remarking that " I could not 
understand, if a person wished to lead a really good 
life, why it was not a good idea to go to confession 
as CathoHcs did." The idea was evolved out of 
my own brain and represented my childish idea of 
the fitness of things. 

A year later when I was sent to Europe to finish 
my education, perhaps in consequence of that re- 
mark, I was furnished with a list of schools which 
I still have in my possession all marked with a 
large " P " for Protestant as my stepmother was 
very much afraid to have me come under Catholic 
influence. I was placed in a Swiss school, where 
I was very happy. It was of the Unitarian per- 
suasion; but more philosophic and utilitarian than 
was the same sect in America. 

Before returning home I spent several weeks 
in Rome, and hours and hours were passed in the 
churches in presence of the Blessed Sacrament. 
Here began, as Bishop Spalding declared, my con- 
version. Not that I was aware of it, or cared much 
for any religion. 

After I had been at home about a year circum- 
stances took me to New York where I for the first 



S8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

time came in contact with the workings of the 
CathoHc Church. I saw the doctrines of the Church 
apphed ahke to rich and poor, gentle and simple, 
learned and unlearned. I witnessed the atmosphere 
of devotion, the unanimity of worship, the daily suc- 
cession of Masses, the coming and going of one 
congregation after another, the devout genuflections, 
and all this in the most commercial and latter day 
city in the world. 

I was much impressed; and then a Protestant 
friend lent me a copy of The Imitation of Christ 
of which I had never heard. A book written pre- 
sumably by one of those idle and dissolute monks 
we read so much of in Protestant books. 

Then I read . Newman, and now that I have 
spoken of the great Cardinal, who is there who 
does not know that in the matter of a conversion, 
his is a name to conjure with? 
* Although I had never been strictly speaking a 
Protestant, I felt that I could not openly denounce 
the opinions under the influence of which I had 
been educated until I had heard what a Unitarian 
minister should have to say for that particular sect. 
I called on the Rev. James Freeman Clarke. I re- 
member one day his offering to pray with me. But 
I never could divest myself of the idea that all 
he said was merely the sum of his own reflections 
and opinions and being such was no more worthy 
of credence than the sum of my own. I felt that 
he had no more authority for anything he chose 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 89 

to put forward than that " he, James Freeman 
Clarke, thought so " and I think I can with truth 
say that just on this hinge turned the door through 
which I entered the Church. 

I was also much impressed by the fact that the 
sermons in Unitarian pulpits were so often finished 
essays on topics of the time rather than on Christ. 
Almost any agreeable subject was introduced, poli- 
tics included. I even heard at what they called a 
** conference," a minister teach the children a verse 
from Longfellow as a religious lesson. In fact 
many of the Unitarian sermons would have made 
excellent editorials in any first class newspaper. 

The Unitarians in New England were founded 
by William Ellery Channing, who having decided 
that the Scriptures did not teach the doctrine of 
the Trinity established a sect on that opinion. They 
prided themselves at that time on their progressive- 
ness and they progressed so well that the first mem- 
bers having denied that the Son was God, their 
children denied that the Creator is our Father. A 
most logical conclusion, but quite a pagan one. 

The Rev. James Freeman Clarke having failed 
to convince me in any way I applied to the Reverend 
Phillips Brooks. The conclusion of his advice was 
that if there were any church on earth which seemed 
to me to have been founded by Christ it was my 
duty to join it. 

A little later the Rev. Father Edward Holker 
Welch, S.J., of Boston College, gave me condi- 



go SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

tional baptism. The root of my conversion was 
my belief in the Papacy, the principle of authority; 
and I think to-day as I thought then that an honest 
study of its history is enough to convince the world 
of its claims. Its very existence carried along and 
protected through the ages is a perpetual miracle. 



ALEXIS I DU PONT COLEMAN, 

M.A., KEBLE COLLEGE, OXFORD. 

Late Rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church, Wilmington, 
Delaware, and son of the late Rt. Rev. Leighton Cole- 
man, D.D., Bishop of Delaware. Author and translator 
of Maeterlinck. 

Montaigne, in the tender, fragrant essay he has 
consecrated to the memory of his bosom friend 
Etienne de la Boetie, tells how people asked him 
why they had loved each other so : *' and I could 
only answer, * Because it was I — because it was 
he.' " In like manner, when I am asked to tell 
something of how I found my way into the Church, 
I can really say no more than " Because God was 
good — because I was meant to be a Catholic." 

I had read but little of directly controversial writ- 
ing; I had few Catholic friends; I had seen for 
years almost nothing of the majesty and beauty 
of the Church's worship: Yet, though I was so 
long " disobedient unto the heavenly vision," grace 
worked on patiently until the end was reached. 

It was in my last year at Oxford that the thing 
came up acutely for the first time. I went up to 
London, and, knowing no priests, sought at random 
for a son of St. Dominic, to whom I had long been 
devoted. In the great Dominican convent at Haver- 

91 



92 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Stock Hill, all one Sunday afternoon, a kindly friar, 
himself a convert, laboured to remove my doubts, 
and I went av^ay almost persuaded. Once back in 
the stubborn High Church atmosphere of Oxford, 
I wavered and was less sure; and what decided 
me to stay where I was may have been the calm 
assurance of an intimate friend, the most devout 
and positively saintly of my contemporaries, who 
is to-day a Benedictine monk and one of the best 
known of English Catholic writers. 

The same curious thing happened twice more. 
A second time I was on the brink, the next summer, 
in a studious Long Vacation spent in the peaceful 
seclusion of Cumbrae in Scotland; and the vice- 
provost of the Anglican theological college there, 
who laid my doubts for the time, also preceded me 
into the Church. The third was after I had been 
ordained and returned to America. I knew well 
one of the most learned theologians of the Episcopal 
Church, and put my doubts before him, to have 
them overborne by his superior knowledge and acute 
dialectics; and now but a few weeks since I have 
had the happiness of welcoming him too into the 
City of Peace. 

So I worked on for six years in a parish which 
I had evolved out of nothing in a city slum, flatter- 
ing myself that I was giving my people " the full 
round of Catholic doctrine and ritual," as one used 
fondly to say, shutting my eyes to the anomalies 
and the irreverences and the heresies which I knew 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN x\MERICA 93 

to be all around me in the other parishes of my 
communion, and sheltering my congregation as far 
as possible from contact with them. 

At last, however, stubborn logic drove me into 
a corner. I faced fairly the fact that I was teach- 
ing, on the sacraments, for example, the straight 
doctrine of the Council of Trent — and teaching it 
not because it appealed to me personally but pre- 
cisely because it was the doctrine of the Council 
of Trent. How, then, I was finally compelled to 
ask myself, could I go on doing thatj and yet reject 
what the same Council taught as clearly on the 
supremacy of the Holy See? 

But wherever I let in logic, the fortifications be- 
hind which I had sheltered myself crumbled and 
fell. I heard my High Church colleagues making 
loud proclamation that their body was " a branch 
of the Catholic Church " — when they felt the need 
of support against Presbyterian or Baptist attacks; 
but I knew how complacently they spoke of it as 
" The Church " and of themselves as " Church- 
men " when no outsiders were present. I knew 
how they resented the sending of an Apostolic Del- 
egate to the United States, all the while that they 
were at least passive accomplices in the attempt to 
set up a new church in Mexico — Cuba and Porto 
Rico and the Philippines had not yet come to form 
part of the General Convention's responsibilities. 

In a word, the time came when special pleading 
could no longer obscure the truth ; and twelve years 



94 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ago I knelt before the Altar of St. Vincent de 
Paul's church in New York and made my submis- 
sion with a humble and satisfied heart. I empha- 
size the length of time which has passed to lead 
up to my final word — that never in the twelve 
years have I had a single hour of questioning or 
regret for the step which I took that day, or ceased 
to be grateful to God for bearing so patiently with 
my delays and hesitations and for bringing me 
home at the last. 



CARYL COLEMAN, ESQ., 

COT-GRINSTEAD, NEAR WOLF's LANE, 
PELHAM MANOR, N. Y. 

The world at large has very little curiosity about 
a man who joins any Church, except the '' Church 
which is called Catholic," not only by its own mem- 
bers, but by its adversaries. Let him unite with 
that organization, and the world is eager to know 
the reasons for his doing so. Almost the first 
question asked a convert is : " What led you to 
become a Catholic ? " It is a question often very 
difficult to answer, so as to be understood by a non- 
Catholic mind, one unbelieving in the kingdom of 
grace — the action of the Holy Ghost upon a human 
soul. Every convert, the moment he enters the 
one fold of Christ, and begins to live a life of faith, 
feels and recognizes how little he has had to do 
with the blessing that has come to him, therefore 
it is much easier for him to give the reasons why 
he is a Catholic, than why he became one. 

Every honest man, if he is a reasoning one, who 
turns his face Romeward in a spirit of sincere ex- 
amination, will sooner or later reach the goal. In- 
quiry will yield to faith: Seek and ye shall find; 
knock and if shall be opened unto you. The first 
step toward Catholicity having been taken by the 

95 



96 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

future convert (which movement may have had its 
source in his own reason, or in environments, or 
in answer to the prayers of others, or in obedience 
to a heavenly inspiration), his will and understand- 
ing come under the influence of the Holy Spirit; and 
he is led, often imperceptibly, little by little, from 
one truth to another, until at last the light of Chris- 
tian faith dispels the darkness of unbelief from his 
soul and he becomes a child of grace. If he at- 
tempts to give the reasons that led him into the 
Church, it usually ends in giving a history of the 
growth of grace within his soul, a very difficult 
form of narrative. I foresee that this account of 
my conversion, brief as it must be, will resolve 
itself into something of that sort. 

My paternal ancestor came to this country from 
Marlborough, Wiltshire, England, landing at Bos- 
ton in 1635, and later moved to Nantucket, where 
he became a member of the Society of Friends, and 
his descendants remained fervent Quakers, until 
my father was *' read out of meeting," because he 
married one of " the world's people." My mother's 
family were natives of Sussex, and came to America 
at a much later date. In England they were di- 
vided as to their religious belief: a part always 
remained faithful to the faith of their fathers, 
and because of the drastic laws against Catholics, 
suffered severely, both in body and goods; never- 
theless, during this time of trial, they gave to the 
Church abundantly of their substance, and of their 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 97 

sons and daughters. They were, moreover, willing 
instruments in God's hands to guard and keep alive 
the Faith in Sussex, even to this day. Other mem- 
bers of the family apostatized and allied themselves 
with the English Establishment; while others be- 
came non-conformists of various kinds, and some of 
these, my mother's immediate progenitors, immi- 
grated to New England. 

My father and mother in their early married life 
joined the Unitarians, but ultimately became in- 
different to all forms of religion, except a belief 
that the spirits of the dead have the power to 
return to earth and commune with the living. 
They were scrupulously honest toward all, sincere 
and loyal in their friendships, pure and clean of 
heart, kind and loving in their relations with their 
children, ever teaching us to be truthful in our 
dealings with men, and to be ever fearless in bear- 
ing witness to what Vv^e believed to be right and 
true. Of God they told me nothing; and never 
gave me a higher principle to guide me through life 
than one largely based upon selfishness, viz., Hon- 
esty is the best policy; at the same time they planted 
in my mind a great dislike, not only for all re- 
ligious forms, but for all forms of religion, and 
also an aggressive contempt for anything in the 
nature of dogma. The result of this training was 
that I grew up a pagan of the pagans, a mere 
worldling, with a vague belief in the existence O'f 
God, none in the immortality of the soul, and very 



98 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

little in the uprightness of man; therefore it was 
not surprising that early in life pleasure became 
the end of my existence. I was eaten up with self- 
love, and found nothing of value except those things 
and persons that ministered to that love. As I 
grew older, like all children of the world, I became 
the victim of satiety and ennui, completely tired 
of the world and weary of myself, and at times, I 
would have gladly welcomed death. It is true, that 
now and then, a voice within my heart would whis- 
per of a possible higher and better and more manly 
life than the one I was living, of a love more stable 
than I had heretofore found among men, of a pos- 
sible motive upon which to build a useful and un- 
selfish life. At such times, I was brought face to 
face with the riddle of human existence, with those 
momentous questions, which come sooner or later 
into the mind of every thinking being, namely, 
where did I come from? what am I here for? and 
where am I going ? But alas ! wheresoever I turned 
to find a solution of these questions, I met only with 
disappointment and disgust. And further, I was 
appalled at the mystery of pain, the inequalities of 
the lot of man, and the seeming unjust division of 
the good things of life. Finding no answer to my 
questions, no solution to my difficulties, it trans- 
pired in time that the higher aspirations of my 
soul, struggling for recognition, were smothered, 
hushed and buried under a most complete indiffer- 
ence. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 99 

Bound in the ignoble chains of an agnostic pes- 
simism; closing my eyes to the higher needs of my 
nature, and forgetting the miseries of my fellow- 
men, I no longer cared for, nor had any interest 
in anything, with a single exception, outside of the 
study of the material forces, of nature, of those 
things which can be seen, handled, weighed and 
measured. This single exception was a passionate 
love for history and archaeology, to which I gave 
a great deal of time and study; and this study, 
under God's grace, ultimately led me to the source 
of all knowledge, all truth, and to the fountain of 
the waters of reconciliation. 

My conversion came about in this way: A 
brother of mine fell into an argument with a friend 
concerning the life of Christ and the truth of Chris- 
tianity, and subsequently this friend gave him a 
book to read upon the subject, viz., " Nelson's Cure 
of Infidelity," which work fell into my hands. Al- 
though the author's reasoning was weak, and often 
incorrect, and altogether unconvincing, nevertheless, 
the book forced me to the knowledge that I knew 
very little, or nothing concerning the life of Christ, 
or about the Christian faith, the history of its plant- 
ing and propagation. To remove this gross igno- 
rance, and with the intention of getting a general 
idea of the subject, I read the New Testament 
through, always regarding it, however, as a collec- 
tion of historical documents of doubtful authenticity, 
yet of sufficient authority as to the ordinary facts 



lOO SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

therein narrated. At the same time I supplemented 
this reading by studying the " Ecclesiastical History 
of Eusebius" (A. D. 325), and "The First Apol- 
ogy of Justin Martyr ( A. D. 139) . When I had fin- 
ished this investigation, Jesus of Nazareth had be- 
come a living reality to me — as much so as Plato 
— and henceforth I looked upon him as an histor- 
ical character, if nothing more. This was a great 
step, as I had hitherto been inclined to believe Him 
a mythical being. Again I went over the same 
course of reading, and the more I studied the life 
and works of Christ, the greater grew my admira- 
tion for His character. Almost immediately I saw 
that if it were stripped of its supernatural qualities, 
it would be meaningless and contradictory. An 
early Christian writer truthfully said " that when 
the intellect has been enlightened by truth, our Lord 
comes to take up His abode in our hearts." ^ So 
it was not surprising that this newly acquired knowl- 
edge acted as a goad to spur me on to further 
study. At once I took up all the Christian writers 
of the first three hundred years, together with a 
few of the post-Nicene authors. I read them care- 
fully through, in order that I might clearly under- 
stand what the followers of the Apostles and the 
promoters of the Faith, thought and taught concern- 
ing their Master. I then made a comparison and 
an analysis of the historical testimony concerning 
the public life of Jesus and that of Alexander the 
1 S. Gregory the Great, A. D. 540-604. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA lOI 

Great, only to find, as all will who make a similar 
investigation, that for every documentary, monu- 
mental, and traditional witness to the life and deeds 
of the Grecian hero, there were a greater number, 
and more trustworthy ones, for those of Jesus of 
Nazareth. In addition, in the case of Jesus, I 
found two classes of witnesses peculiar to Him, 
and of the greatest value, viz., the Jewish Prophets, 
who foretold His life; and the Christian martyrs: 
thousands of men and women and even children, the 
noblest of the human race, who, at the time of the 
planting of the Faith, willingly and gladly laid down 
their lives as a testimony of the truth of the Gospel 
narrative. So overwhelming was the evidence in 
favor of the truth of the life, words and work§ 
of Jesus Christ, as recorded in Holy Writ, that I 
was compelled, willingly or unwillingly, to either 
doubt all history, all human testimony, or to believe 
in Him and His divine mission to mankind. In 
the meantime, from purely metaphysical reasons, 
scientific conclusions and limitations, the existence 
of a Personal God became vividly true to me. I 
saw clearly the preservation of our identity after 
death, man's true place in creation, and the neces- 
sity of something to unite his nature with the 
nature of God, in other words, religion. The mo- 
ment my historical research led me to believe in 
the historic Christ, I entered into the fulness of 
faith. What was this faith that had mastered my 
understanding ? First, that there was one God, and 



I02 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

that all things were made by Him, and without Him 
was made nothing that was made. Second, that 
man is placed above all created beings and naught 
save God will satisfy his highest aspirations. Third, 
that God became manifest to man in the person 
of Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son; and that 
this Word of God (the one Mediator of Redemp- 
tion), to whom all power was given, delegated to 
a certain body of men the authority to teach all 
nations, to observe all things whatsoever He had 
commanded and taught: And Jesus coming, spoke 
to them, saying, All power is given to me in heaven 
and earth. Going therefore teach ye all nations: 
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to 
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you? This Word made flesh further promised this 
organization of men, that the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it,^ that the Holy Spirit would abide 
with it and guide it into all truth, '^ and that He, 
Himself, would never abandon it, for He said, / 
am with you all days, even to the consummation of 
the world.^ With this faith, there entered into 
my heart a desire to do God's will, and from this 
desire was born a spirit of prayer, and for the first 
time in my life my soul spoke to its Creator. My 
conscience was awakened, my will was ready to 
act in obedience to God's laws, and all things con- 

2 Matt xxviii, 18-20. *John xiv, 16; xvi, 13. 

3 Matt, xvi, 18. ^ Matt, xxviii, 20. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 103 

strained me to place myself under the guidance of 
grace. The battle was won : right reason and hon- 
esty of purpose had triumphed over ignorance, prej- 
udice and4ove of the world. But what was I to 
do? who was to lead me into the way of right 
living? Where was I to find the living, speaking 
voice of God and His Christ? Where was this 
body of men to whom the Master said: He that 
heareth you heareth me? ^ Where was this Church 
of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth? '^ 
Where was this one fold and the one shepherd? ^ 
Where was this kingdom built upon the foundation 
of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself 
being the chief corner-stone ^ — that keeps the unity 
of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body, one 
spirit — one Lord, one faith, one baptism? ^^ 
Where was this organization founded by Christ, 
this church built upon the rock : / say to thee, that 
thou art Peter; and upon this rock {Peter) I will 
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it? ^^ Where was this church that 
has the power of binding and loosing : Whatsoever 
you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in 
heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, 
shall be loosed in heaven? ^^ Where was this 
church I was to hear: // he will not hear the 

« Luke X, 16. 10 Eph. iv, 5. 

^Tim. iii, 15. " Matt, xvi, 18. 

8 John X, 16. 12 Matt, xvi, 19. 
» John X, 16. 



I04 SOME ROADS TO ROI\IE IN AMERICA 

Church, let hitii be to thee as the heathen and the 
publican f Where was this Church with an un- 
broken continuity of government, of authority, and 
of teaching from the Apostles to this day? Had 
the words of Christ failed ? and His promises proved 
worthless? No. For when I cast my eyes upon 
Christendom, I saw that there was one body that 
claimed these prerogatives, to the exclusion of all 
others; and moreover, plainly bore the marks that 
substantiate the claim. The marks were : — 

I. Apostolicity : The persevering in the doctrine 
of the Apostles,'^^ and in the communication of the 
breaking of bread and in prayers; whose succession 
of bishops has come doum to its}^ " The Apostles 
have preached to us from the Lord Jesus Christ : 
Jesus Christ from God. Christ, therefore, was sent 
by God and the Apostles by Christ. ^^ The Apostles 
in turn have sent others to carry on their mission, 
and this Church has the power to enumerate those 
who were, by the Apostles, instituted bishops in the 
churches, and the successors of those bishops down 
to ourselves." ^^ 

n. Authority : For how shall they preach unless 
they be sent,^^ " grounded on the instruction given 
by the Apostles, hold fast, and teaching to the 
people, that faith which in nothing differs from the 
institutions of our forefathers," ^"^ and " have a suc- 
cession from the Apostles — who, with the succes- 

13 Acts ii, 42; Romans x, 15; Eph. iv, 11-14; I Tim. ii, 2. 

15 Idem. 1^ Rom. x, 15. 

1* St. Clement, A. D. 68. " st. Damascus, A. D. 370. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 105 

sion of the episcopate, have received, according to 
the good will of the Father, the sure gift (grace) 
of truth." 18 

III. Unity: For there shall he one fold and 
one shepherd ^^ for ** God is one, and Christ is one, 
and the Church and the Chair one, founded, by the 
Lord's word, upon a rock; another altar, or a new 
priesthood beside the one altar and the one priest- 
hood, cannot be set up " ; ^^ whosoever gathereth 
elsewhere, scattereth. 

IV. Visibility : A city seated on a mountain can- 
not he hid?^ " It is an easier thing for the sun 
to be quenched, than for the Church to be made 
invisible," ^^ and so " with the light of the Lord " 
the Church *' puts forth her rays throughout the 
whole world, yet the light is one which is spread 
over every place, while its unity of body is pre- 
served." 23 

V. Indef ectibility : His kingdom shall have no 
end,^"^ " a city on earth impregnable," ^^ and 
" though the gates of hell are many, and almost 
countless, not one of them shall prevail against the 
rock (Peter), or against the Church which Christ 
built upon it." ^^ It is true " she may be overcast 
with clouds, but fail she cannot, where Peter (rock) 

18 St. Irenaeus, A. D. 178. 23 5. Cyprian. 

19 St. John X, 16. 24 Luke i, 31-33. 

20 S. Cyprian, A. D. 248. 25 st. Clement of Alexan- 

21 Matt. V, 14. dria, A. D. 190. 

22 St. John Chrysostom, 26 Origan, A. D. 216. 

A. D. 387. 



I06 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

is, there the Church is, where the Church is there 
death is not, but life eternal." ^' It is also true 
" she may indeed be shaken by persecution, but 
never can be over-thrown; be tried, not con- 
quered," 2* because the Lord God Almighty " has 
promised He will effect this, and His promise is 
nature's law." ^^ 

VI. Sanctity: Christ also so loved the Church, 
and delivered Himself up for it; that He might 
sanctify it, cleansing it by the I aver of water in the 
zi}ord of life, that He might present it to Himself 
a glorious Church; ^^ he, therefore, " believes in 
God, who confesses in God a holy Church," ^^ the 
mother of saints. 

VII. Catholicity: The Gospel of the Kingdom 
shall he preached in the whole world for a testimony 
to all nations.^^ '' The Christians are not one na- 
tion, but out of all nations one people ;" ^^ and 
'' neither do the Churches founded in Germany nor 
those in Spain, in Gaul, in the East, in Egypt, in 
Africa, nor in the regions of the middle of the 
earth, believe or deliver a different faith." ^* 

It was plain to my eyes, and it is easy to be seen 
by all, that the one Church claiming to be the only 
Church of Christ, and at the same time bearing all 
these Marks of Authenticity, to the exclusion of 

27 S. Ambrose, A. D. 385. ^i 5. Peter Chrysologus, A. 

28 S. Jerome, A. D. 390. D. 440. 

28 Idem. 32 Matt, xxiv, 14 ; Acts i, 8. 

30 Eph. V, 25. 33 Origen. 

34 S. Irenaeus. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 107 

all other organizations, was the Holy Roman Catho- 
lic Church. That Church '* in which the primacy 
of the Apostolic See has always been in force," ^^ 
" from whence the unity of the priesthood has its 
source." ^^ And " having the office of heading the 
Churches of the whole world " ; ^^ *' holding the 
primacy that it may receive the complaints of all." ^^ 
Standing " in the same relation to other Episcopal 
Churches as the Apostle Peter stood to the rest of 
the Apostles," ^^ to whom the Lord Christ said: 
Thou, being converted, confirm thy brethren — 
" that is, become the support and teacher of those 
who come to me by faith " ; ^^ upon whom alone the 
Lord Christ enjoined the care of all the flock of the 
one sheepfold, for to him He said: Peter lovest 
thou me? Feed my sheep —th?^, is he committed 
to Peter, " the Chief of the Apostles, that unbroken 
rock, the foundation of the Church," *^ the sheep 
for whom He shed His blood. Moreover, it was 
just as plain to me, and to be seen by all who look, 
that all other Christian organizations *' mutually re- 
futed and condemned each other," ^^ for among 
them there are as many faiths as wills, and that 
each one was the offspring of some disobedient 
Catholic, and in most cases bore his name. '* Be- 
fore Valentinus there were no Valentinians ; nor 

3» S. Augustine. 39 S. Optatus, A. D. 368. 

3® S. Cyprian. ■** S. Cyril of Alexandria, 

37 Theodoret, A. D. 424. A. D. 424. 

38 Pope Boniface, A. D. 422. "^^ St. John Chrysostom. 

42 S. Ephrem. 



I08 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Marcionites before Marcion," ^^ nor Arians before 
Arius, nor Manichseism before Manes, nor Pelagians 
before Pelagius; and coming down nearer to our 
own time: before Luther there were no Lutherans, 
nor Calvinists before Calvin. All of these so called 
Christian Churches at the best were nothing more 
than branches torn off the parent tree ; " called in- 
deed after Christ's name, yet not His, but are, some 
of them, at very great distance from Him; whilst 
others, on account of some very sHght matters, are 
disinherited, and have made themselves and their 
children aliens unto Him ; they are not within the 
boundaries, but have established themselves without, 
and have nothing of Christ but the name." *^ 
These facts, together with the fact, that the Apos- 
tles preached, not themselves, but Christ Jesus the 
Lord, and that not a single sect or church is called 
after any one of them, made it more and more 
evident to me that *' they ceased to be Christians, 
who, having lost the name of Christ, assumed hu- 
man and extraneous titles." ^^ I saw then how true 
were the words of the great Saint Cyprian, written 
in the third century, " The spouse of Christ cannot 
become adulterate; she is undefiled and chaste; she 
owns but one house; with spotless purity, she guards 
the sanctity of 07te chamber. She keeps us for God ; 
she appoints unto the kingdom the sons she has 
borne. Whosoever, having separated from the 

*3 S. Irenseus. *** Lactantius, A. D. 320. 

4* S. Epiphanius, A. D. 385. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 109 

Church, is joined to an adulteress, he is cut off from 
the promises of Christ. Neither shall he come unto 
the reward of Christ who leaves the Church of 
Christ. He is an alien, he is an outcast, he is an 
enemy. He can no longer have God for a Father, 
who has not the Church for a mother." 

The more I studied the history of private judg- 
ment, the source of heresy and schism, the plainer 
I saw that the Church of Christ, '' begotten from 
one faith, and brought forth by means of the Holy 
Ghost," ^^ must of necessity be endowed with a 
continuity of authority and doctrine, or it could not 
be of God. 

I had now travelled three different roads, only 
to find myself, at the end of each journey, at the 
threshold of the Catholic Church, viz., by studying, 
first: the history of the Faith as set forth in Holy 
Writ, the writings of the Fathers, the canons, the 
liturgies, and the lives of the Saints; second: the 
history of the Faith, as set forth in the teachings 
and careers of heresiarchs, the rise, weaning and ex- 
tinction of heresies and schisms; third: the history 
of the Faith as shown by the preservation of the 
Church, in spite of the scandalous lives of some 
of her children, and the worldly ambition of others. 

At last the eyes of my soul were fully opened, I 
had passed from darkness to light, I saw the folly 
of my past life. God's Holy Will was now easy 
to read : " Take thou, and hold that faith only as a 

** St. Cyprian. 



no SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

learner, and in profession, which is now by the 
Church delivered to thee." ^^ 

There was but one thing left for me to do, so I 
sought an introduction to a priest, in order to make 
profession of my belief, to be baptized, and to 
bring my life under the sweet yoke of Christ. The 
Very Rev. Isaac T. Hecker examined me as to my 
faith, and almost immediately I was admitted to 
the sacraments by the Rev. George Deshon. Much 
to my surprise, I discovered, through the examina- 
tions I underwent, that I was in possession of the 
entire system of Christian dogma; and Fathers 
Hecker and Deshon were equally surprised to find 
that it was unnecessary to give me any instruction 
whatsoever before admitting me to the Church. 
How did I come to this knowledge? where had I 
learned the teachings of the Catholic Church? 
From the Holy Bible and the early Christian writers, 
for up to the time of my baptism, I had never read, 
or so much as had in my hands, a book of Catholic 
theology, instruction or controversy; nor had I any 
conversation with a Catholic, either layman or cleric, 
upon the subject of religion. My historical studies, 
my reading, my reasoning from cause to effect, 
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, had brought 
me into the Catholic Church, and gave me a knowl- 
edge of its teachings. The grace of God, the words 
of Christ: What shall it profit a man if he gain 
the whole world, and lose his own soulf keeps me 
*7St. Cyril of Jerusalem^ A. D. 363. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA III 

there. And I can say with St. Augustine, in all 
truth, "the agreement of peoples and of nations 
keeps me; an authority begun with miracles, nour- 
ished with hope, increased with charity, confirmed 
by antiquity, keeps me; the succession of priests 
from the chair itself of the Apostle Peter — unto 
whom the Lord, after His resurrection committed 
His sheep to be fed — down even to the present 
bishop (Pius X), keeps me; finally, the name itself 
of the Catholic Church keeps me — a name which 
in the midst of many heresies, this Church alone 
has, not without cause, so held possession of, as 
that, although all heretics would fain have them- 
selves called Catholic, yet to the inquiry of any 
stranger, Where is the meeting of the Catholic 
Church held? no heretic would dare to point out 
his own basilica, or meeting-house. These ties, 
therefore, so numerous and powerful, of the Chris- 
tian name — ties most dear — justly keep a believ- 
ing man in the Catholic Church." And why not? 
For that which the Catholic Church teaches, it " re- 
ceived from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, 
Christ from God," a church built upon the Apostles 
and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
cornerstone ^^ — whp has loved us and washed u^ 
from our sins in his own blood^^ 

Many years have passed since my baptism, and 
in the meanwhile, I have seen the Church in many 
climes and among many nationalities; I have read 

*8 Eph. ii, 20. 40 Apocal, i, 5. 



112 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

hundreds of lives of her saintly children; I have 
partaken of her Sacraments, tried to live her life, 
and now, I have but one testimony to give : How 
beautiful art thou, my love! — how beautiful art 
thou! Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is 
not a spot in thee — fair as the moon, bright as 
the sun, terrible as an army set in array. 



THE REV. JOHN E. COPUS, 

Priest of the Society of Jesus; author of books for boys. 

The earliest religious impressions of which I have 
at this time distinct recollection, were connected 
v/ith the Church of England. Shortly after com- 
ing home from boarding school I was admitted 
with some secrecy and no little formality, to the 
fellowship of a coterie of men, who were for that 
period and place, quite advanced Ritualists. One 
was the organist of a parish church, another an 
assistant curate of my native town of Guildford, 
England. Several held positions in various gov- 
ernment departmental offices, and many were old 
school companions. 

At first, attracted by the aesthetic value of archi- 
tecture, ornamentation and ecclesiastical music, I, 
with several others of the little coterie, attached an 
overwhelming importance to symbolism, and to the 
more harmless forms of ritualism, such as turning 
to the East when reciting the Creed, elaborate 
bowing of the head at the Gloria, and (by a bold 
extravagance) openly making the Sign of the Cross 
during the service. 

We were members of a private High-church 
guild, or society, few in numbers, but. quite aggres- 
113 



114 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

sive, and we considered ourselves very *' advanced,'* 
and quite tolerant towards Rome. This was about 
the year 1865. About that period there was a con- 
troversy on the question of baptismal regeneration. 
There were some " Evangelicals " in the Estab- 
lished Church who repudiated it. Our guild, al- 
though there was much difference of opinion on 
many points, made a firm stand on this issue. 

At that time I, in common with others of this 
little society, was very proud of and enthusiastic 
over the doctrines we held, and we felt as though 
we were a privileged and segregated class, destined, 
in some way not very clear at the time, but destined 
nevertheless to leaven the whole mass of evangelical 
inertness in the English Church into a symbolic and 
ritualistic activity. How we were to accomplish 
these things, or when, was not very plain to us, 
but we felt that a way would be made. We culti- 
vated an attenuated devotion to the Blessed Virgin 
Mary. I doubt if, at that time, one of us had 
ever heard of the Immaculate Conception, and it 
is most probable that we would have rejected it 
had that doctrine been proposed to us. We burned 
two candles, nevertheless, before her picture in our 
private oratory when we recited complin. 

All the rectors of the churches of my native town 
were, at that time, evangelicals or " Low " church- 
men. The Tractarian movement had not, as yet, 
gained much impetus in the place of my birth, and 
I was quite willing to subscribe to the following 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA I15 

question, and answer, of the English Church cate- 
chism. 

" How many sacraments has Christ ordained in 
His Church?" 

*' Two only as generally necessary for salvation, 
that is to say Baptism and the Supper of the Lord." 

Looking backward all this appears now mere 
opera bouffe, but at that time it was a very serious 
matter with myself and my companions of the 
coterie. Of course we had no spiritual director, 
and we were, although we did not realize it, as 
truly Protestant as the most evangelical churchman, 
for every one of us was guided by his own private 
opinion in what we should believe as well as prac- 
tice. Sometimes these practices bordered on the 
severity of the anchorets of the desert. An in- 
stance: One Good Friday we walked five miles 
to a picnic grounds where we endeavored to conduct 
a sort of open-air " Three Hours' Agony " service. 
The attempt was not successful, for in Protestant 
England Good Friday is regarded as a holiday and 
a day of merry-making, rather than of devotion. 
We walked home, and until near seven o'clock that 
evening nothing, not even a drop of water, had 
passed our lips. My father met me upon my re- 
turn, and, observing my pinched face and blue lips, 
w^anted to take me to a hotel and give me a dinner. 
When I refused, he remarked : '' This Puseyism 
is as bad as popery. You will all be Papists before 
you know it." 



Il6 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Not long after this I lived for two years in 
Rochester and under the guidance of a curate of a 
succursal chapel — formerly a mediaeval leper chapel 
— I was confirmed in the cathedral that had once 
known Fisher, the martyr, as its bishop. I remem- 
ber that I was dissatisfied with the ceremony. The 
bishop, I thought, ought to have been vested in 
mitre and cope. He wore the ordinary balloon 
surplice wdth black satin bands at the wrists, no 
cassock, a black stole and a university hood. At 
that time my knowledge of the sacramental system 
was so vague that I should not have been able to 
answer definitely, had I been asked, whether the 
ceremony in which I had just participated were a 
sacrament or not. My impression was that it was 
a very respectable function. 

My growth in doctrinal knowledge and in a re- 
alization of the Church as an exposition and con- 
tinuation of the work that Christ established came 
when I accepted a position as master in the parish 
school of St. Peter, Folkestone. The perpetual 
curate of St. Peter's was the celebrated Father 
Ridsdale, who was for so many years prosecuted, 
and, as some think, persecuted, in the Court of 
Arches for ritualistic practices. 

He was very advanced; celebrated Mass with 
colored vestments, maintained a convent of Sisters, 
had Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, Stations, 
beads, holy water, and in fact all the religious para- 
phernalia that may be found in a well equipped 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA II7 

Catholic church. The rood-screen of St. Peter's, 
dividing the sanctuary from the body of the church 
was one of the finest specimens of modern ecclesi- 
astical hand-wrought ironwork in England. 

Father Ridsdale was devotedness itself, and I 
never entertained a doubt of his entire good faith. 
He recited the Roman Breviary daily, lived a celi- 
bate life, made an annual retreat, and his zeal in 
parish work and among the poorer classes w^as un- 
bounded. Here I began the practice of auricular 
confession, and of receiving communion under one 
kind, and while fasting, here, also, under the favor- 
ing auspices of this good man I began to acquire 
not only a fuller knowledge of the sacramental sys- 
tem, but a broader grasp of the whole economy of 
the Redemption and a fuller appreciation of the 
value and necessity of prayer, and a glimpse into 
the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. 

In school and Sunday-school, and pulpit, Father 
Ridsdale taught openly the existence and the per- 
sistence of the English branch of the Catholic 
Church, the seven sacraments, invocation of saints, 
purgatory and many other Catholic beliefs and 
practices. The Rosary was recited publicly, and 
St. Peter's possessed a Society of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment — a truly w^onderful thing in the English 
Church of thirty years ago. This unashamed 
avowal of the Church's teaching and its unhidden 
practice in our own " branch " was a delight to me. 
I was, consequently, very happy at this period of 



Il8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

my life. Thoroughly imbued with the " branch " 
theory, and being more attracted by external and 
ritualistic observances with all their aesthetic beauty 
than by theological or doctrinal arguments, and 
having this aesthetic sense satisfied by a beautiful 
church with its high altar, wonderfully beautiful 
statues, a reserved Sacrament, fine music (Greg- 
orian) and good preaching — I look back on this 
period of my life and wonder that so much peace- 
fulness and contentment were allotted to one in- 
dividual. It was, however, a calm before a time of 
stress and storm. 

Perhaps it will not be uninteresting to relate here 
some of the events that happened to me at this 
period. After the lapse of years these happenings 
now appear to have the tinge of the serio-comic, 
but they certainly did not possess that quality to 
me when transpiring. Fathers Ridsdale, Stanton, 
Mackonochie, Body, and a few others, were re- 
garded as the most advanced Puseyites, or ultra- 
tractarians along in the Sixties. A logical conse- 
quence of their position was that they were com- 
pelled to recognize and admit as one of their party 
the celebrated Father Ignatius, the English Church 
monk, who had established his monastery of Llan- 
tony, at Abergavenny, in Monmouthshire, Wales. 
Not a few of the High Church clergy regarded 
him as an excrescence, but after much consultation 
it was decided among the more advanced to sane- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA II9 

tion his position in the Estabhshment and extend 
to him the use of their pulpits once a year. It was 
at one of these annual sermons at St. Peter's, Folke- 
stone, that I first saw this remarkable, if eccentric, 
man. 

It has been my good fortune to hear many' pulpit 
orators in two worlds, but nothing I have heard 
since has equalled this man's oratorical powers when 
he was in his prime. Since that time the English 
Church has "seen many strange happenings, but in 
those early days the sight of a brown habit, san- 
dalled feet, a white cord, and a shaven head in an 
English church pulpit was a sensation indeed. Ir- 
respective of the dramatic or poetic appearance of 
the speaker, there was in him a force and fire of 
eloquence, a power of exposition, and a magnetism, 
coupled with extraordinary rhetorical richness, and 
a marvellous voice that easily mastered all the tones, 
which resulted in creating a furore throughout 
the land that has rarely been equalled. 

During my first interview I asked Father Ignatius 
how he came to adopt his monastic mode of life — 
a rather crude question under the circumstance and 
for which an excuse might be found in the adoles- 
cence of the questioner. 

" It came about in this way," replied the monk. 
" One day at Oxford we were going from college 
to chapel across the college green. Some one casu- 
ally remarked : * Ye monks going to vespers,' and 



I20 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

the thought ' Why not ? ' came to me as an in- 
spiration, and from that time I determined to re- 
introduce monasticism into England." 

" Do you know," he continued, *' that for a long 
time I studied carefully the rules of the different 
founders of religious orders, and I began to be- 
lieve that I would have to turn Roman Catholic 
to accomplish my purpose, when, fortunately, I 
found a rule that did not necessitate being a Ro- 
man." 

He paused dramatically, and when I asked the 
name of the rule, he replied: 

"The Benedictine Rule." 

He was serious. He was too great an enthusiast 
to give the slightest evidence of even a shadow of 
levity. Not at the time, nor for several years after, 
did I see the unconscious humor of the reply — a 
humor which the devoted sons of St. Benedict will 
be as quick to see and enjoy as anyone. 

" Many miracles attended the opening of our 
monastery," was his somewhat startling continua- 
tion. " We had purchased some old abbey lands 
in Wales and we wanted very much to celebrate 
the opening of a part of the monastery by a mid- 
night i\Iass on Christmas Day. An old monastery 
bell had been discovered on the land and disin- 
terred, and we hung it in the tower. Now would 
you believe me, sir, on the stroke of midnight on 
that Christmas night that old monastery bell pealed 
out the Angelus ! We fell on our knees and adored ! 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 121 

Angels rang that bell! No mortal hand touched 
it. An evident miracle ! " 

The Angelus at midnight was a little out of the 
ordinary time, but one should not be too particular 
on an occasion like this. I enquired of Father 
Ridsdale later whether credence should be given 
to the story. He replied, with a significant smile: 

'' Mr. Lyne " (the family name) '' is rather en- 
thusiastic." I found later that the story of the an- 
gelic bell-ringer was not generally accredited, and 
most of those who heard it gave the credit to the 
more material sexton of the monastery. An un- 
usually generous collection, or an unexpected dona- 
tion of building material was regarded by Father 
Ignatius as " an evident miracle." 

Once I paid Father Ignatius a visit when he was 
staying with a clergyman other than Father Rids- 
dale. I was ushered into a private oratory, un- 
lighted save for the flicker of the red flame of an 
altar lamp. Suddenly a shadowy figure was seated 
near me. " You wish to see me, my child? " 

I did wish to ^^^ him, but in the gloom that was 
not possible. I have always thought that Father 
Ignatius imagined I had come to him as a postulant 
begging admission to his monastery, because he took 
much pains to describe to me the method of life 
pursued there. With remarkable cleverness he 
made it appear to possess a mystical, mediaeval ro- 
manticism which was extremely captivating. I dis- 
tinctly remember one description which he gave. 



122 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

" There is a constant process," he said, '* of dis- 
integration going on in the monastery. Many come 
and write home letters describing how romantic it 
is to lie in bed and hear the monks chanting the 
Office in the choir at midnight — so mediaeval and 
all that, you know. Well, these young men look 
at the poetry of the life, but not at the prose, and 
they do not remain." 

" We try our novices severely," he continued. 
'' Lately the son of a nobleman joined us. One 
day there were a number of visitors within the 
enclosure, some of whom were acquainted with the 
novice and his family. I turned to him in their 
hearing, and said : — 

" This life of a monk is much easier for you 
than selling pins and needles over a draper's counter, 
is it not ? " I saw the hot blood of anger mount 
to his face, and he was on the point of making a 
retort when he caught sight of the heroic-sized cru- 
cifix in the centre of the enclosure, and he dropped 
his eyes in meek submission, and turned silently 
away." , 

At the close of the interview in the weirdly dark- 
ened room I was suddenly startled when I found 
some rough, coarse material rubbed across my lips. 
As the shadowy form of the monk vanished through 
the door I realized the somewhat amusing fact that, 
all unconsciously, I had with my lips touched the 
" hem of his garment," but not with anything cor- 
responding to the dispositions of those who per- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA I23 

formed a similar action, as recorded in the Gospel. 

Whether Father Ridsdale had heard of my visit to 
the monk, and was afraid of losing his school-master 
I do not know, but one day soon after the interview 
he said to me: 

" Do not make any change in your life as yet. Do 
not enter into any permanent state at present. We 
do not know what is in the future. We may, you 
and I, open a monastery some day right here at 
home without going to Wales." 

This was a startling suggestion, and led at the 
time to many rose-colored day-dreams regarding 
the future. But nothing came of it. My time of 
content and tranquillity was at length drawing to a 
close. It was an apparently insignificant circum- 
stance that was the beginning of a series of events 
that finally turned the current of existence into 
other channels. 

One evening I was dining with Father Ridsdale 
and it happened to be a Friday. My clerical friend 
had rooms near the church in a house whose owner 
and wife were Catholics. We finished our soup 
and the good housewife placed the second course 
on the table. Father Ridsdale lifted the shining 
metal dish-cover, and behold! a roast of beef! 

I do not think I shall ever forget the look on his 
face at that moment. Some sharp words followed 
between him and his landlady — not housekeeper, 
remember — and the impression left upon me was 
that she was sarcastic and a little impertinent as she 



124 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

left the rcMDm. After apologies for the mistake, 
he begged me, of my charity, to eat what was pro- 
vided. 

" Upon the chair of Moses have sitten the Scribes 
and Pharisees. Whatsoever they shall command, 
that observe and do, but according to their works 
do ye not." 

]\Iy esteem and respect for Father Ridsdale re- 
mained. There was, nevertheless, one drop of the 
poison of doubt injected into my veins by this in- 
cident. In the retrospect I can now see that this 
little incident was the beginning of the unsettlement 
of my belief in the Apostolicity of the English 
Church. Abstinence, I knew, was but a question 
of discipline, but I began to realize there was a lack 
of unanimity in discipline even among " Catholics," 
which term I understood to include Mr. Ridsdale 
and myself as surely as it did the most perfervid 
" Roman." 

When the vacation of that summer approached 
I was warned by Father Ridsdale not to go into 
a Catholic church. " They will tell you," he said, 
'' that at the time of the Reformation the English 
bishops were excommunicated, but they will not tell 
you that the excommunication ceases with the death 
of those excommunicated." 

His advice was followed, not that the statement 
interested me, but because I was convinced that the 
English " branch " of the Catholic Church had 
Mass, and it did not appear to me of much impor- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 125 

tance whether I heard it in an EngHsh Catholic or a 
Roman Catholic church. 

The events related happened during my second 
year's residence at Folkestone. During the first 
year's vacation I took a leisurely walking trip among 
the towns on the south coast of England. By the 
end of the next school year I had become, if I may 
be allowed the expression, more religious, in the 
sense that I knew more of my religion and had 
gained a higher appreciation of the spiritual part 
of our nature. The idea of another walking tour 
was now distasteful, and I went home at once to 
Guildford. 

Here I realized to a startling degree the great 
difference between the Folkestone " Catholicism " of 
which I was enamored, and the broad, or low, the- 
ories prevailing in my native town. For the first 
time I began to long for a church with unity of 
doctrine and practice, and yet there was no thought 
of deserting Anglo-Catholicism. 

An event, trivial as I now view it in the retro- 
spect, but which was by no means so at the time, led 
me a step further Romeward that summer. As be- 
fore remarked, while at Folkestone it was my habit 
to go regularly to confession. I looked in vain in 
my native place for a priest through whose minis- 
trations I could continue this practice. Not even 
the young curate of our former guild (now mori- 
bund) was advanced enough to permit him to hear 
confessions. 



126 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

One of my old school companions told me of a 
certain rector who was getting *' high " and had 
even showed a floral cross on the altar of his church 
the preceding Easter. One Saturday evening I 
called at the rectory. He was dining, but the butler 
showed me to the drawing room and requested me 
to wait a few minutes. Presently a rubicund and 
good-natured looking gentleman appeared — an 
excellent illustration in the flesh of the Good and 
Easy clergyman of Marshall's '' Comedy of Convo- 
cation." Offering me a seat in a leather-covered 
chair, he was urbanity itself as he ensconced him- 
self in another. 

" I want to go to confession," I said, somewhat 
bluntly, for I was a little annoyed at the contrast 
of things in my native land and Folkestone. 

"Confession! eh! what — " 

" You are, a priest, I believe, of the English 
Church?" 

" Certainly — certainly — but — " 

" I have been living on the sea-coast where priests 
of the Church of England hear confessions regu- 
larly." 

" Indeed ! but I — 

" — and I shall be much pleased if you will afford 
me the opportunity of continuing the practice of 
making auricular confession. May I make my con- 
fession to you ? " 

He did not answer immediately, but arose and 
went to a bookcase and brought back to his seat a 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 12/ 

book of Common Prayer. Turning over the leaves 
he at last settled on a page and put the book on the 
broad arm of his chair. 

" Have you anything, my young friend, that is 
particularly burdening your conscience ? " 

" No, sir, nothing particular that I am aware of," 
I replied. I was desirous of making what I learned 
later was called among Catholics, a confession of 
devotion. 

" Do you give alms to those in need ? " 

*' Occasionally I bestow a little in charity," I re- 
plied. 

" Do you think that you fulfill all your obliga- 
tions as a Christian?" was the next question. 

I could plainly see that he had turned in the 
prayer-book to the Visitation of the Sick, where the 
rubrics prescribe that the sick person after he has 
unburdened his conscience of those things that are 
oppressing it, and expressed sorrow of heart, shall 
receive absolution from the priest. 

" And then the priest shall say," etc. 

Here follows the ^ words of absolution, in Eng- 
lish, of course, and very close to the essential part 
in the Roman formula. 

The good man considered for a long time. He 
had probably never been placed in so critical a posi- 
tion before. He was face to face with the question 
of his own priesthood. 

" Yes," he said, musingly, as if trying to make 
up his mind, '' yes, I am a priest, and here is the 



128 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

formula that is to be used in forgiving sins. I 
suppose it is all correct." 

I then knelt down at his armchair, told the story 
I had to tell, and he pronounced the words, read- 
ing them carefully from the book. His right hand 
was not raised, and no mention was made of im- 
posing a penance. The dignified, elderly gentle- 
man, in the correctest of clerical black, and clerical 
cut of his coat, appeared immensely relieved when 
that which must have been an ordeal for him, was 
over. During the remainder of that vacation, 
when I desired to go to confession, I ran up to St. 
Alban's, ' High Holborn, the most famous ritualistic 
church in London at that time. This good and 
simple soul afterwards became a bishop in one of 
the British colonies. 

Neither the Friday dinner episode, nor the anom- 
aly I have just related actually unsettled me. I 
remained another year as the school-master of 
Father Ridsdale's church school, but, in some way, 
much of the glamour had disappeared. The con- 
tent which I had previously enjoyed was lessened, 
yet I was firmly convinced that Apostolic succes- 
sion was possessed by our '' branch." 

At this period I was vexed, or perhaps startled, 
when an acquaintance, a staunch Anglican was re- 
ported to have " gone over." I think a real un- 
settling began when, one day, an assistant of 
Father Ridsdale informed me, not as a secret, but 
as a piece of information freely circulated among 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 129 

the High Church party, that there were a number 
of the younger advanced clergymen in England 
who went over to the continent and received a 
second ordination to the priesthood by the Jan- 
senist bishops of Holland, " to make assurance 
doubly sure." 

That some of the clergy of my own Church 
actually doubted the validity of their ordination 
was a great shock to me, but even then my faith 
in the English Church did not waver. I began, 
nevertheless, to search within the church for some 
definite and absolute authority whose pronounce- 
ment on this vital question would be final. I, with 
many other High Church laymen, had chosen His 
Grace of Canterbury to represent for us and to 
us the ecclesiastical authority in the English 
" branch," and we generously conceded to the 
Bishop of Rome the same authority in the Roman 
" branch." We were soon in a quandary, for we 
saw that the Archbishop of Canterbury was by no 
means in doctrinal accord with many of his episco- 
pal brethren. I had a great repugnance towards 
the Greek Church, but for the very existence of 
my own position I was comj>elled to recognize it 
as the third " branch " of the true Church. The 
more closely I looked into the question, the more 
clearly I saw that our own bishops were at doc- 
trinal variance among themselves, and some of 
them were impregnated with Erastianism. I was 
unable to discover a voice of authority, but I 



130 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Still clung to the stability of the Church of Eng- 
land, although I began, with some misgivings, to 
realize more fully the absence of unity of doc- 
trine. I saw that the High Church party was a 
kind of imperium in imperio, opposed in doctrine 
to a large number of the bishops and to the vast 
majority of laymen. 

Safe now in the bosom of the Church, pos- 
sessing and enjoying the blessings of the gift of 
faith, it is comparatively easy to look back and 
be surprised at my denseness and dullness in 
things spiritual. Of one thing I am sure, namely, 
that there was no diminution of my good faith. 
As every convert knows from his own experience, 
the condition of mind, even when one is within the 
very penumbra of faith, is such that those things 
which are subsequently as clear as the sun at noon- 
day, are then obscure or impenetrable, or are, 
owing to the peculiar and often tense condition of 
mind, such as never strongly appeal to the intel- 
lect, or demand a solution. 

Some time later I accepted a position as master 
in a large college in the suburbs of Bath, Somer- 
setshire, in the west of England. There were 
nearly five hundred students at this institution. 
On Sunday mornings they were sent, in charge of 
masters, to the different churches in the city of 
Bath. One Sunday in the Spring of 1876 I was 
assigned to one of the city churches in charge of 
about seventy students. The church to which I 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 131 

had taken my company of boys was a very high 
church, and to my satisfaction, bore a strong re- 
semblance to St. Peter's at Folkestone. '' High 
Mass " was celebrated, and the priest wore colored 
vestments. The sermon was on the sacrament of 
penance, and the Mass. 

I was jubilant, and made up my mind to be an 
attendant at this church as often as possible, lit- 
tle dreaming of the tragedy that was soon to fol- 
low. Now, I thought, all my difficulties and un- 
easiness will be laid to rest. Here was a priest 
who not only had the courage of his doctrinal con- 
victions, but who spoke as one having authority. 
I would rely upon him. Why had I been myself 
uneasy? I was a member of the English branch 
of the Catholic Church and here was a priest after 
my own heart. I would, therefore, bow to him in 
submission. I did not then see that my obedience 
was to be of my own choosing, and that I had 
exercised private opinion in this case as fully as 
I had been exercising it unconsciously all my life. 
My pleasant dreams were of short duration. 
There came a dreadful shattering, and for a brief 
period my world was in ashes! 

On the following Sunday I again took the 
students to the same church. But lo! a transfor- 
mation! The high altar, candles, lamps, flowers, 
incense, vestments and the priest were gone! The 
powers that be — that is, the omnipotent church- 
wardens of the parish — had arisen during the 



132 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

week in their might and the incumbent had been 
deposed, either by forcing him to resign, or by 
getting him removed by his bishop. Instead of 
an altar there was now a low table; instead of a 
devotional musical service with a vested priest and 
attendant servers and a dignified ceremonial, there 
was restored the old-fashioned " parson-and- 
clerk " raucus duet in the morning prayers and 
abbreviated communion service. There was no 
music except the singing of hymns. The sermon 
flatly contradicted and denied the doctrines preached 
in the same church and from the same pulpit the 
Sunday before. 

I then asked myself how that church could be, 
not the true church, but a true church, which could, 
within eight days, from the same pulpit, teach 
diametrically opposite doctrines by accredited and 
official expounders of its creed. This was the be- 
ginning of the end for me. To remain in the 
faith, I must leave the English Church. I had 
come to the end of my long road. 

Within a month from the event related above, 
I put myself under the instruction of a priest — the 
Rev. J. N. Sweeney, O.S.B., of Bath. 

Of the wrench at parting with life-long friends, 
of being called apostate, traitor and other hard 
names by former friends, of the sensitiveness of 
soul, torn and tried by the struggle, or of the ap- 
parent coldness and the unsympathetic bearing of 
one's new co-religionists, there is no need to speak 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1 33 

Few who are Catholics by birth know the actual 
trials a convert undergoes after his reception into 
the Church, and fewer still have a correct sympathy 
for the subject of those trials. Every convert will 
experience more or less of them, and it is non- 
sense — nay it is worse, for it is untruth — to try 
to persuade those coming into the Church that 
they will escape them. It is part of the price, but 
the lasting peace of security is worth it all, and a 
thousand times more. 

Has there been an experience of doubts after 
submission? None whatever. Faith is a divine 
gift. Dona Domini sine Penitentia. The joy of 
its possession has been ample compensation for 
all the trials of life. There have been long arid 
stretches in my life since 1876, but (as it was well 
put in one of the magazines recently) " It is a 
fine thing to belong to a great wide old Church 
if only for the corporate wisdom and patience it 
acquires. It partakes of the unhurrying confident 
serenity of things vast and everlasting. Those 
outside may criticise; some inside may worry; but 
the great body moves on about its work unashamed 
and unafraid." 

There has never come to me the faintest shadow 
of a doubt as to the soundness of my position — 
never. Credo ! Credo ! 



HASKET DERBY, M.D., 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 

Son of the late Elias Hasket Derby, Junr., and grandson of 
General Hasket Derby, of the Revolutionary War; grad- 
uate of Amherst. 

Although all roads lead to Rome, it was over 
no single one that my footsteps were directed. 
Mine was no sudden conversion, but based on the 
observation, reading and reflection of many years. 
Constant dropping wears the stone, but this is due 
to the sum of all the drops and not to the impact 
of any particular one. 

My father, as a young man', was a Unitarian. 
My mother came of a Presbyterian family. When 
they were married and came to Boston to live they 
joined the Episcopal church. In this church we 
children were baptised and to its services we were 
taken. Sunday was a dreary day in our family. 
Sunday-school once, church twice, catechism in 
the evening, all our favorite sports prohibited, all 
our books taken away, what wonder if we disliked 
the day. The church services were unattractive 
to a child, being long and devoid of external aids 
to devotion. Our rector was " low," a thorough 
Calvinist, and preached corresponding doctrine. 
He never made any impression on me and I stoutly 

134 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1 35 

refused to be confirmed, when those of my own 
time presented themselves for that rite. The idea 
of sacramental grace was never presented to us, 
one must be good in order to receive the sacra- 
ments, it was not their reception that aided one 
to become good. 

Yet I owe much to my early religious education. 
The Episcopal church encourages familiarity with 
the Scriptures, and such great truths as she teaches 
are indelibly impressed on the youthful mind. 

Thus I grew up, indifferent to all religion. At 
college all the influences were those of the Congre- 
gational denomination; we had a revival once in 
two years, sweeping in its temporary effect, dis- 
astrous ultimately in the main, to the cause of 
religion on account of the many lapses from grace 
of those who professed to have experienced a 
change of heart. It was about this time in my life 
that I first learned anything about the distinctive 
doctrines of the Catholic church, a book entitled 
" Alban " having fallen into my hands. It was 
the story of a Yale student who became a convert 
to Catholicism during his college course. My 
imagination was much inflamed by the story, and 
for a time I burned to follow his example, but it 
was imagination alone that was thus affected, heart 
and reason remained untouched. The impression 
proved an evanescent one. 

During my residence abroad as a student, par- 
ticularly that portion of it that I passed in Austria, 
10 



136 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

I was extremely impressed by the external beauties 
of the church, especially by the majestic order of 
its worship and the dignity of its ceremonies. I 
often, while living in Vienna, went to Mass. I 
bought a missal and learned to follow the service. 
But of the real meaning of that or any other form 
of religion I had hardly a remote conception. I 
was careless and indifferent, led a selfish and self 
gratifying existence, and never paused to think of 
what I was really placed in this world to do, or 
what was likely to become of me after I should 
leave it. 

So time went on. I returned home, married, 
and outwardly conformed to the Episcopal church, 
of which my wife was a member. It was not till 
after a bereavement that I first felt the need of a 
consolation greater than this world can give, as 
well as of an assured hope in the life to come. I 
was confirmed and became a communicant. 

We attended for years the preaching of Phillips 
Brooks, my old schoolmate and personal friend. 
He was a man of great heart, perfect sincerity, 
and extreme earnestness, but the views he held, or 
at any rate inculcated, were in many respects 
vague. The necessity of personal goodness was 
always insisted on, but the subject of dogma gen- 
erally avoided. The Good, the Beautiful and the 
True were held up for our admiration; but plain 
teaching on the necessity, effect and duty of bap- 
tism, the nature of confirmation, the doctrine of 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1 37 

the Eucharist, the teaching office of the Church, 
were strenuously avoided. I could not help noticing 
moreover the great change from the doctrines I 
used as a child to hear from my old pastor, Dr. 
Vinton, at whose feet Brooks had himself sat. It 
was a different religion that was now inculcated. 
And I asked myself the question, " if so great a 
change has occurred in the lifetime of a single 
individual, what will be the case in my children's 
time, and what will be taught their descendants? " 
Ought a true system of revealed religion to be 
influenced by such changes? If I was truly taught 
as a child that the great adversary of mankind 
was a potent personality, going up and down the 
world, seeking opportunities of doing mischief, 
always proffering temptation against which we 
were to fight, what was the meaning of Brooks' 
allusions to " a time when men believed in a 
personal devil." If it were indeed true that there 
is a hell and that it is eternal, why did no single 
member of the congregation feel certain whether 
his rector believed in a hell or not. If Holy Com- 
munion were indeed the mystical breaking and 
partaking of the body and blood of a God who 
became mortal and died for mankind, what was 
the propriety in inviting to its reception *' all 
members of Christ's church, by whatever denomi- 
national name they might be called," as was 
Brook's constant custom, thereby gathering in both 
those who denied baptism to their and all children, 



138 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

and those who looked upon the Saviour of the 
world as simply a perfect man and not a deity. 
If the Scriptures and the Scriptures alone were 
to be the source from which doctrine was to be 
drawn, as the Articles of Religion clearly asserted, 
and if indeed there was a definite revelation from 
God to man, why were there so many warring sects, 
each drawing its doctrines from this same book. 
If these Scriptures directed us to " hear the 
Church," there must be a church to hear, one that 
could neither deceive or be deceived. And yet the 
Articles declared that all churches might have 
erred and were liable to err. 

All this gave me much food for reflection. The 
lack of earnestness of the church members I came 
in contact with also struck me. There were of 
course exceptions, but religion seemed with the 
majority to be based on subservience to public 
sentiment, to be only skin deep, put on on Sunday 
and left off the rest of the week. They jested 
on sacred subjects, treated the clergy with famil- 
iarity and good-natured tolerance, attributed little 
importance to what seemed to me most serious. 
I was appointed a delegate to a diocesan conven- 
tion, and was profoundly and unfavorably im- 
pressed by my experience. It was announced 
that a preliminary religious service, intended es- 
pecially for the members, would be held. At the 
appointed time I went, putting aside everything 
else in order to be present. In the reading desk 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1 39 

was a clergyman whose congregation consisted of 
three or four old women and one stray man. 
There was a bishop to be elected at this conven- 
tion, and the taunts and recriminations that passed 
between men engaged in this grave task, the ap- 
plause and hissing in a consecrated edifice, made 
a most painful impression on me. 

A little later a legal friend asked me one day if 
I had ever looked up the question of Anglican Or- 
ders. This was a new subject for me, and I im- 
mediately procured and read all the books on both 
sides that I could find bearing on the matter. 
Previous to this I had never entertained any doubt 
of the validity of orders in the Anglican church. 
But as I read I found that, with the Edwardine 
Reformation, a substantially new doctrine had 
taken the place of the old. Previous to this time 
the central office of the Church had been the Mass, 
the unbloody sacrifice offered by the priest for the 
living and the dead. In the new prayer-book the 
Mass became a commemorative service and an op- 
portunity for the administration of the Commun- 
ion rather than a sacrifice. The priest at the al- 
tar disappeared and was replaced by the minister 
at the Lord's Table. To show their contempt for 
the old state of things the reformers caused, in 
some churches the altar slab or stone to be re- 
moved and to be placed as a step at the church 
door, that all entering might trample upon it. 
The sacrifice for the dead, as well as the living, 



I40 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

being abrogated, prayers for the former ceased to 
be used. The saints, reigning with Christ, were 
no longer besought to aid us with their suffrages. 
Devotion to the Mother of God was done away 
with. And yet all these things had been taught 
by and practised in the Church universal, as well 
among those separated from, as those remain- 
ing in communion, with the See of Peter, from the 
earliest times. As the bishop no longer intended 
to give the priest the power to offer sacrifice, and 
as the rite of ordination was sedulously altered in 
order to eliminate from it any such idea, it fol- 
lowed, to my mind, that the orders of the early 
church were no longer transmitted. 

All these things were either true or false. Be- 
yond doubt they had been taught by the Church 
from time immemorial. This was admitted by the 
reformers, who stated in one of the " homilies ap- 
pointed to be read in the churches," that the whole 
Christian world had been sunk in error and su- 
perstition for a thousand years or more. The 
pure light of the Gospel was, according to them, 
but now beginning to shine. But Our Lord had, 
in the beginning promised His Church to be with 
it to the end of the world, had given it a teaching 
commission, and secured it against the possibility 
of teaching error. Either then the promise had 
failed or the Early Church was right. 

Then too Protestants based their faith on an 
infallible book interpreted by the individual. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 141 

guided by the light furnished by the Holy Spirit. 
What warring sects, what confused and contrary 
systems had hence arisen! Yet all professed to 
base their faith on the Bible. It dawned on my 
comprehension that an infallible revelation must 
have an equally infallible interpreter. But where 
was this interpreter to be found? Evidently not 
where it was expressly disclaimed. But one body 
claimed infallibility, and that was the Church of 
Rome. 
To which grace was given me to submit. 



THE HON. HENRY CLAY DILLON, A.M. 

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. 

In answering the question, " Why did you be- 
come a CathoHc?" I am painfully aware of the 
fact that I am dealing with a personal matter, likely 
to be misunderstood, and which will probably pro- 
voke criticism. " A decent regard for the opinions 
of mankind," prompted our forefathers to state the 
reasons which impelled them to take a new stand 
among the nations of the earth. When a Prot- 
estant, a free thinker, an infidel, if you please, 
after having arrived at the age of fifty years, .and 
being in full possession of his faculties, faces 
about, recants his convictions, and adopts the 
" Credo " of the Catholic — a like respect for his 
old companions in thought requires that he should 
give good and sufficient reasons therefore. All 
conversions are the direct result of the interposi- 
tion of the Holy Spirit. Not even the great 
Apostle to the Gentiles attempted to formulate his 
theological reasons for his change of faith until 
long after the light of heaven fell upon him, and 
time had been given for mature study and reflec- 
tion. 

I have advanced the belief that it is God's Holy 
Spirit working in the hearts of men, and not ar- 

142 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA I43 

guments, which convinces and converts. A great 
sorrow, reverses of fortune, sickness, the prayers 
of a devout mother or devoted friend (Uke my 
good Father John B. Tabb), the contemplation of 
good works and good examples by faithful serv- 
ants of God — all or any of these are sufficient 
to arrest the attention and turn the mind God- 
ward, especially when the heart is yearning for 
the truth and for the peace of mind which the 
world cannot give. 

Fortunately for me, I was educated in the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, and in the highest 
wing of it. We called ourselves Anglican Catho- 
lics. In the creed we declared our belief in the 
" Holy Catholic Church," even while the word 
Protestant stared at us from the flyleaf of the 
prayer book. A love of consistency, the exercise 
of the Protestant right of private judgment, to- 
gether with the dogmas of Science, falsely so- 
called, led me away from that excellent communion 
of devout men and women, and caused me much 
sorrow at the parting. This right of private judg- 
ment, with particular reference to the interpreta- 
tion of the Scriptures, led me to agnosticism, to 
Unitarianism, to the very opposite pole of Cathol- 
icism. The antidote and corrective was found 
in the study and practise of the law. This enabled 
me to see how confusing and destructive such a 
doctrine would be if applied to the law. Without 
a court of last resort to interpret the law, we know 



144 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

that anarchy must prevail. When every man be- 
comes his own interpreter of the law the authority 
of the government ceases and security to life and 
property is at an end. 

FoUow^ing this train of thought it was not dif- 
ficult to trace in history, and see with my own 
eyes, the effect of such anarchistic doctrines upon 
the world and upon its own advocates. I saw 
Protestantism disintegrated and hopelessly divided. 
Free thought had ended in infidelity. Unable to 
agree upon what Christ taught, it soon found itself 
powerless to teach authoritatively the Christian re- 
ligion. John Calvin had no more right to decide 
my faith for me than Martin Luther or Thomas 
Cranmer. The Synod of Dort had no more au- 
thority than the Westminister Asserhbly, and 
neither of them had, in fact, any authority at all. 
The leaders being unable to agree, sects multiplied 
until the doctrine of private interpretation of the 
Scriptures was reduced to an absurdity. Now, the 
creed, (belief) of a Protestant Church is the creed 
of its minister and his is a variation from the school 
in which he was taught while the members of his 
congregation are at liberty to believe as much or 
as little of his teaching as they please. 

"Higher Criticism," a name invented for them- 
selves by modern critics to cover up their infidelity 
has at last relegated the defense of the Bible to 
the Catholics as " the proper custodian of anti- 
quated fables." In this we observe one of the re- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 145 

venges of time : for " Vengeance is Mine, saith the 
Lord. I will repay." The Catholic Church, which 
has been so bitterly arraigned by Protestants as 
the suppressor of the Holy Bible, now leads all 
Christendom in its defense. 

At one time I was fully persuaded that essential 
unity already existed, and that is still a stock argu- 
ment, and used very effectively by my Protestant 
friends. But its invalidity is at once seen when 
we observe that the very existence of the different 
sects proves that their differences are essential. 
Indeed, that very essential difference was an excuse 
for each separation and for organizing each new 
sect. 

But the time is now ripe for Christian unity. 
We, who are in the habit of doing business with 
each other during the week in friendly, trustful, 
confidence, are about ready to quit hating each 
other on election day and Sunday. Therefore, I 
gladly turn my thought and pen away from the 
past to the future. Little or no progress can be 
made by dwelling upon our unhappy differences: 
everything can be gained by united action against 
the common foe. Let us frankly confess our er- 
rors, as I am now doing and return to the jurisdic- 
tion of the successor of the Apostles upon whom 
the Christian Church was built. " Thou art Peter, 
and upon this rock I will build my church and the 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it " (Matt, 
xvi, 18). 



146 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

For, regardless of what others might do, the 
time had come for me to act. It came to me as it 
did to Newman, and as it will come to all who are 
longing for Christian unity. We do not control 
our own ideas, but are controlled by them, and woe 
be unto that man who does not act according to 
his convictions. I was convinced that God would 
not and did not create man and send him adrift 
in the world without telling him whence he came, 
what he is here for, and whither he is going. It 
became clear to me, as an historical fact, that this 
revelation was not only made to the first created 
man, but has been faithfully handed down to us 
through the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Jewish 
Church, and the Apostles and their successors of 
the Christian Church. We know that the poems 
of Homer were not originally written. They were 
correctly handed down to posterity for many gen- 
erations by tradition. Masonry has been preserved 
and is still taught in the same way. We know that 
Christ Himself never wrote anything — except in 
the sand. The winds came and blew that away, 
but the spoken words were remembered and have 
come down to us. The Christian Church existed 
long before the Gospels and Epistles were written. 
Instead of the Bible proving the Church, it is the 
Church that proves the Bible. 

As a lawyer I could come to but one conclusion. 
As there must be an end to litigation, so there must 
be an end to controversy. The decisions of our 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 147 

Supreme Court are final (infallible). It is a legal 
fiction that " the King can do no wrong." And yet, 
this fiction in law, is the expression of a necessary 
fact. Religious controversy, all questions relating 
to faith and morals, when decided by the Pope, are 
final, and must be accepted as infallible. When I 
want to know what the common law of the land 
is I go to the decisions of the Courts. In like man- 
ner, when I want to know what the Christian re- 
ligion is, I must go to the reports of the Councils 
of the Cathx)lic Church and to the decisions of the 
Popes. In its entirety it is not to be found any 
where else. 

There remained for me then, but one way to 
solve the question of Christian unity, and that was 
by uniting myself with the Catholic Church. I 
was not changing my religion, I was changing the 
place where I went to church. It was a question 
of jurisdiction rather than religion which con- 
fronted me, and I settled it by submission, as all 
must do who love Christianity more than they do 
themselves. 

There were ethical reasons also why I became a 
Catholic. From pulpit and platform I had heard 
much of the Fatherhood of God and the Brother- 
hood of Man. I was much inclined to the convic- 
tion that the best type of manhood was to be 
found outside of the Church. A wider experi- 
ence however has taught me differently. For a 
realization of that dream I searched diligently and 



148 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

conscientiously through Odd fellowship, Masonry, 
Unitarianism, and kindred ethical societies and 
fraternal organizations. But the God of all these 
was not our Father. He was a mere abstraction, 
a first cause, an over-soul, a law, not a lawgiver. 
He was the subject of much rhetoric, the object 
of little love, and worship. He was not a Being 
who hears and answers prayers, Who pities and 
forgives sinners. Who makes laws and commands 
obedience. As for the Brotherhood of Man, let 
those who have searched for it through all the secret, 
benevolent societies and fraternal organizations, 
tell me if they have been more successful than I 
in finding it. It was a brotherhood with the black 
man and the yellow man left out, a brotherhood in 
which even the foreign man was not welcome. I 
did not find it until I searched for it in the Catholic 
Church. It is not perfect even there, but I found 
a brotherhood kneeling side by side on the same 
hard floor. There, I found all sorts and condi- 
tions of men, all colors, all nations, blended by a 
common faith into a universal brotherhood, a 
Catholic Church. There all tongues confess " One 
Lord, One Faith, One Baptism," and in a universal 
language confess God's Holy Name. 

Socialism, as an economic system, and altruism 
as its religious counterpart, were also very attrac- 
tive to me. I was longing for the time to come 
when the only competition among men might be, 
** who best can serve his fellow-man." My own 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 149 

practical attempts in this direction, and those of 
others which came under my observation were 
failures. They were rendered impossible and im- 
practicable by the selfishness of the very men in- 
tended to be benefited thereby. They failed be- 
cause they were not built upon the Rock. We who 
composed them and promoted them were firmly 
convinced that the Church was no longer the 
helper and defender of the poor, but we were mis- 
taken. Why should a labor organization hate the 
Church that teaches it is a mortal sin to keep back 
the wage of the poor? Why should any man 
object to the wholesome discipline that requires 
confession and restitution for sin? Why should 
the Socialist reject the only religion on earth that 
teaches truly the equality and fraternity of man- 
kind? Why reject the Son of God Who called 
Himself our Elder Brother and our Friend, and 
Who was crucified for us. ** Greater love hath no 
man than this that a man lay down his life for his 
friends." 

To all these societies with which I have affiliated, 
I am indebted for grains of truth in bushels of 
chaff. They excited me to press on until the whole 
truth was found. When I found it in the Catholic 
Church, I discovered, to my astonishment, that 
there is not a truth nor a semblance of truth in any 
of these societies that has not been better taught 
and practised by her for nearly 2,000 years. 

In this connection I am also bound to acknowl- 



150 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

edge the obligations I am under to well known 
friends — the A. P. A.'s. Long before I had 
thought of becoming a Catholic, these sticklers for 
truth declared I was one and had been seen com- 
muning at the altar rail. The more I denied it, 
the louder the cock crew. At length it occurred 
to me that a church which excited the hostility of 
such men must be a very good church, and that 
her doctrine must be true if no weapons better 
than forgery and perjury could be brought against 
them. Thus it has always happened to me. I 
am indebted to both my friends and enemies. Both 
have helped to bring me into the Catholic Church. 
The friends led, the enemies drove, and so I got 
there sooner than I otherwise would. 

I must also admit my obligations to the politi- 
cians and the parties. Without them, and my ex- 
perience in public office, I could not give all the 
reasons why I became a Catholic. I had studied 
them all closely; tried always to vote for the best 
men regardless of their party or affiliations. I 
believed the world was to be reformed by a new 
party, to grow out of the old. I will not say that 
reform within the party is impossible, because it 
is human; but I will say that reform within the 
Church is not only possible, but obligatory because 
it is divine. Experience taught me also that the 
new party man was just as hungry for office as the 
old one, if not more so, because longer from the 
crib. He was not a bit more honest and not so 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 151 

well qualified. My experience as a trustee of the 
public schools also drew me nearer to the Catholic 
Church. It was Vv^hile engaged in the discharge 
of that public duty that I became convinced that 
the reform of all reforms must consist not so much 
in organizing new parties as in seeking to train 
a better man. Good laws do no good when put in 
the hands of bad men to execute. Bad laws are 
shorn of their badness when put in the hands of 
good men to enforce. From this, the next step was 
not difficult. The Church, not the party, must train 
this man. 

When finally I presented myself a stranger, to 
good Bishop Montgomery and told him I wanted 
to become a Catholic, I was already convinced and 
only needed instruction and the Sacraments of the 
Church. 

Just as I was without one plea, I faced about 

like the Prodigal Son. My belly w^as filled with 

the husks of free thought and reform nostrums. I 

longed for a place where I could stand and feel 

the ground solid beneath me. I started back, 

stopped again for a while at the dear old Half- Way 

House, the Protestant Episcopal Church, and then 

on again until I reached my Father's House. Its 

portals opened and I became a Catholic. May God 

give me the grace here to remain steadfast and 

immovable, and to manfully fight under His banner, 

the Cross, for Catholic Faith and Christian Unity 

unto my life's end. 
11 



MOSES HALE DOUGLASS, ESQ., 

CHARIiESTOWN, NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

I became a Catholic because the teaching unity 
of the Church of Rome shows that it is the Church 
of God and that all its teachings are true. 

At the time of my conversion I was preparing 
for the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
with no attention to Rome except that which arose 
in the ordinary course of study, church-going and 
reading, all exclusively Anglican. I was firmly 
convinced that the High-Church teaching about the 
Blessed Sacrament and the sacramental nature of 
the priesthood were essential in perpetuating and 
applying our Lord's purpose toward mankind. 

What led to the transition in me, which did not 
occur in my associates who were of the same mind, 
is hard to describe well. But next after the Good- 
ness of God, helping my goodwill, I attribute it 
to my sense of the responsibility that was to rest 
on me as a teacher. In a word, I felt that those to 
whom I might minister had a right to demand that 
I teach only such doctrines as the Episcopal Church 
avowed. Living or preaching my convictions 
about the Blessed Sacrament and priesthood would 
require me to show explicit utterances of this 
Church that the Blessed Sacrament was indeed the 

1^2 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 153 

Body and Blood of Jesus, and the priesthood sac- 
ramental ; or there would be no obligation to accept 
my teachings. I proposed to leave no room to re- 
ject them, not doubting that I should easily find ex- 
plicit statements of what I professed as the true 
teachings of the Episcopal Church. 

However that may be argumentatively, there 
came a time as I looked for authorization of Cath- 
olic teachings by the Episcopal Church, when I 
felt it unreasonable to look further. Many great 
and good men could be quoted in their favor; but 
they were teaching their Church instead of being 
taught by it. And the significance of it suddenly 
burst upon me. 

My grateful sense of duty and trust in the Epis- 
copal Church went in a twinkling. Its conscious- 
ness of fallibility left me without convincing evi- 
dence not only about sacramental orders, and the 
presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, but 
also about the value of its testimony to the dif- 
ficult and amazing stories of our Lord's birth and 
life; His death and resurrection. I could no 
longer hold them intact without a surer witness. 

I did not come out of a storm into a calm. I 
had experienced no storm. My confidence in the 
Episcopal Church had prevented it. There was but 
a moment when I felt overwhelmed. In the Prov- 
idence of God all that I had heard and read about 
the unity of the Apostolic See came back to me, in 
spite of my life-long opposition to it. It is a pal- 



154 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

pable fact, from which, not to which, we reason. 
As I lost confidence in the Episcopal Church I saw 
the teaching unity of the Church of God visibly 
appearing to all men. It was sufficient alone to 
prove the miraculous origin and continuance of 
Christian teaching; and it accomplished in me the 
very purpose for which it had been given and sus- 
tained. 



SUSAN L. EMERY, 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 

Author of "The Inner Life of the Soul," etc., and on the 

Editoral staff of the Sacred Heart Review of Boston 

Mass., since 1891. 

The roads that lead souls into the Catholic 
Church are many and various. Rome rhymes 
with home, and indeed all roads lead there. Di- 
verse influences wrought upon my own experience; 
but perhaps those that I shall indicate to-day, in 
this brief sketch, will sufficiently show, for the pur- 
pose of this book, the process that led to the final 
result. 

I was brought up in a very religious atmosphere. 
Though my father came of Unitarian and my 
mother of Congregationalist parentage, they began 
to attend Episcopalian services soon after my 
birth, although they were not confirmed until I 
was about ten years old. I can remember the 
occasion. We had been living for a short time in 
Rhode Island. Soon after our return to Dorches- 
ter, now a part of Boston, a clergyman came to our 
parish, the late Rev. William H. Mills, to whose 
influence we owed very much. My first solid ideas 
of what was then accounted good and rather High 
Churchmanship came, so far as I remember, from 
him; and there was, in his life and teaching, as 
I now look back upon it, a certain earnest, sin- 
155 



156 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

cere, and devout reasonableness that was very help- 
ful for my ardent young soul, which, however, 
needed more special treatment than it received at 
that time. 

In 1872 I was living in New York, engaged in 
editorial work on the Young Christian Soldier, a 
periodical still connected with the Episcopalian 
Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. Dr. 
Twing was then the Domestic General Secretary; 
he took me to the General Convention of the 
Episcopal Church held in Baltimore in 1872. I 
had been growing more and more " High Church " ; 
and I can remember that I went, in the early morn- 
ings, to the very advanced Church of Mount 
Calvary, and that once, on coming back to my 
boarding place, I kissed my hand in my fervor, 
thinking that perhaps the real body of our Lord 
Jesus Christ had lain on my palm that day. But 
the debates at the Convention, and my reading, 
and the life around me, showed me plainly the 
varying schools of thought and practice among 
Episcopalians, clergy and laity alike. At last the 
questions began to press upon me : " Where was 
the real truth? What was I to believe? Where 
was I to go? " 

I had a dear friend, Julia Scammon, an earnest 
Catholic, who said to me : " Susie, I am going to 
do all I can to make you a Catholic." But, oddly 
enough, circumstances swept us apart for awhile; 
and, when we met again, I was indeed a Catholic. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1 57 

I know that her sister Margaret, Mrs. Lockwood, 
sent my name to the Apostleship of Prayer. 

The Three Branch theory held possession of my 
soul. I felt that I could willingly die for the sake 
of seeing the " Greek, Roman and Anglican 
branches," as I called them, made "one again." I 
maintained that Julia Scammon should remain in 
the " Church of her Baptism '' and I in the " Church 
of my Baptism " ; and then we should do all that we 
could to bring about that desired " reunion," quite 
unaware that there can be but one true Baptism, 
and that a person who has been, surely, validly 
baptized is not '' baptized over again," as too many 
people mistakenly suppose. I am, however, like 
Father Faber, thankful and glad that I was " con- 
ditionally baptized," when I was received into the 
Catholic Church at my conversion. 

In the Spring of 1874, I told Dr. Twing that 
I could no longer edit the Young Christian Sol- 
dier, because my mind was in such a state of doubt 
that it did not seem to me right to try to teach 
the children. I remember that he said : '* If you 
come back to it ten years from now, the place is 
ready for you." 

I went for five months to the seashore; and I 
think the loveliness of nature and the quiet sur- 
roundings helped and strengthened me physically; 
but the mental and spiritual torture continued. If 
I could only see my way clearly! If I could only 
see what path to pursue! Was I to go to Rome, 



158 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

or to the Greek Church; or was I to remain where 
I was? What possible thing could there be, to 
make me leave my own people, break the happy 
union in which my parents knelt with their nine 
children at the chancel rail, cause grief and pain 
in my home-circle ? If I stayed where I was, there 
were those who taught the Real Presence, Con- 
fession, and the like. Why, then, should I go 
away? and what path was any more clear to my 
straining eyes? If I could only see! If my will- 
power would only act! 

On Christmas Eve I was walking along Boston 
Common, and I said my first real prayer to the 
Blessed Virgin. I had been reading the contro- 
versy between Newman and Pusey on that subject. 

" Mother of God," I cried, " make me will to do 
God's will!" 

The answer came. On Christmas Day I was in 
great distress, but I forced myself to go to Com- 
munion. Then the Feast of the Epiphany, the 
feast of light and of manifestation, arrived. 
There was, in our house, a volume of sermons by 
the great Irish Dominican, Father Thomas Burke, 
belonging to one of those Irish maidens who have 
done so much towards spreading the Faith in New 
England. I opened the book. Whether the day 
was the exact feast of the Epiphany, or whether 
it was in the Octave or season, I do not now recall ; 
but, in that time of illumination of the Gentiles, 
I looked down upon the page, and distinctly before 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1 59 

me lay the words that I had read and heard un- 
numbered times before, (I tell it as I recall it 
after many years are fled), Our Divine Lord's 
own words spoken to His chosen and great Apostle : 

'" Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will 
build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys 
of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou 
shalt hind upon earth, it shall he hound also in 
heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, 
it shall he loosed also in heaven." 

As I say, I had read and heard these words un- 
numbered times already, in my own quiet room, 
and at family prayers, and in church. I had never 
once realized, however, that the promise to St. 
Peter in St. Matthew's Gospel, xvi, 18, 19, was 
far and away in importance beyond that given to 
all the Apostles in St. John's Gospel, xx, 22, 23 : 
"Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you 
shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose 
sins you shall retain, they are retained.'' To-day, 
however, I saw printed on the same page of Father 
Burke's sermon containing the promise to Peter, 
these words from St. Ambrose: 

" Show me Peter, and I will show you the 
Church." 

And then my cry for help to the Blessed Virgin 
was manifestly answered ; for then I knew, and 
then I willed God's will. 

As clearly as I see now before me the page on 



l6o SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

which I write — as absolutely as I know that two 
and two make four — I saw and I knew that the 
Church of which the Pope, the successor of Peter, 
w^as the visible head, was the one true Church of 
God ; I saw that therein Peter had the supreme pre- 
rogative ; and that where he was, my place was. No 
fear came over me, either to make me take the step, 
or not to take it, into that Church that loomed 
magnificently now before my gaze. I saw the 
truth, and the truth had made me free. 

A wave of such immense spiritual joy over- 
whelmed my soul that I. could not speak at once 
of the treasure that I had won; I had to hug it 
to my heart a day or two, before I could speak 
of it. I had gone through fire and water, and 
God had brought me out into a wealthy place. 

I was received into the Church on St. Joseph's 
Day, March 19, 1875, by the Rev. Edward Hooker 
Welch, S. J., himself a convert, in the Church of 
the Immaculate Conception, Boston, Mass. 

So plain, so vivid, so logical, so certain, was it 
all to me, that I thought I had only to tell my dear 
ones of it and they would see it as I saw. But 
no. Faith is a gift of God. A man may reason, 
and read, and argue; and yet he may not see the 
truth. For myself, I can only say that whereas I 
was blind, now I see. Darkness became bright- 
ness, in the light of the Infallible Church. Ques- 
tions about Transubstantiation, Anglican Orders, 
Indulgences, troubled me not at all. Peter spoke, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA l6l 

and God spoke through Peter. The one true God 
must have His one true Church. 

Thirty-three years have passed since this great 
grace came to me ; and through all these years, the 
majestic form of God's one true Church has stood 
clearly before me, the Church as He promised it, 
one, indivisible, infallible, against which the gates 
of hell never have prevailed, and never shall pre- 
vail. 



THE VERY REV. HIRAM FRANCIS 
FAIRBANKS, 

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN. 

Rector of St. Patrick's Church. 

I am a descendant of the Puritans for whom 
I have a sincere admiration and esteem, not for 
their distinctive rehgious principles, but for their 
honest, sturdy and independent characteristics. 

For a century before my Puritan ancestors came 
to these American shores their fathers had been 
Churchmen of the iVngHcan type. 

In this story of my conversion I shall not write 
an essay on why I am a Catholic, with its logical 
premises and conclusion, and with its reasons for 
my position such as I should now write after many 
years of study and experience in the Catholic 
Church and its priesthood. I shall try rather to re- 
member the course of my mind and the workings of 
divine grace at the time when God was leading me 
on, when sometimes I followed Him willingly and 
sometimes hesitated or refused to follow Him. 
While my journey in the main was onward and up- 
ward, sometimes I retraced my steps and sometimes 
did not know where I was wandering. Such a 
course was not always logical, and was not always 

162 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1 63 

along the highway which leads directly to the City 
of God. 

I was born in Leon, Cattaraugus county, New 
York, on the twenty-fifth day of May 1845. My 
parents were members of one of the sects of ex- 
treme evangelical Protestantism, of which my 
father was a minister. When I was eight years 
of age, I moved with my parents to Wisconsin. 
I was brought up with the idea that before I be- 
came a real Christian I must be *' converted." I 
remember being present on one occasion at the 
Lord's Supper and hearing the words of the min- 
ister : " The body of our Lord Jesus Christ " etc., 
and having no doubt that he meant what he said I 
had a longing desire to go forward and receive 
communion. How I envied a boy a little older than 
myself who had that happy privilege! It was per- 
haps two years afterwards when one day I was 
walking with my father and thinking over what I 
had just heard in the church that I could no longer 
control my ardent desire to be the friend and loved 
one of Christ. I stopped in the middle of the 
way and clasping my father's arm burst into tears, 
and sobbing as if my heart would break, cried 
out in the midst of my grief : *' Father, I want 
to be a Christian! " Because I did not know any 
better way God came down to my childish sim- 
plicity and must have answered me. He who 
walked along the roads of Galilee consoling the 



164 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

sorrowful and forgiving the sinful, met me on the 
highway and brought to my soul not alone peace 
but great happiness. It was on a Sunday and I 
well remember how during the remainder of the 
day I wandered through the fields and woods com- 
muning with God. O, how brightly the sun shone, 
how sweetly the birds sung, how joyfully God re- 
vealed Himself in the leaves, the flowers, the trees, 
in nature everywhere; O, how joyfully my soul 
sung His praises! 

Soon after my fifteenth birthday, I entered a 
Protestant college. I had never before been away 
from home, and although my new surroundings 
were interesting, and naturally attractive to a 
young student I was very lonesome and home- 
sick. Whenever I have been compelled to leave 
home, homesickness has always been one of the 
afflictions of my life, and was destined to make 
the cross which afterwards I had to take up and 
bear a very painful one. 

x-At this time I had never seen a Catholic priest, 
knowing him to be such. I think I had been in 
college less than a month when I saw in a news- 
paper that Father D would celebrate Mass 

in the new church of St. Mary, and in the afternoon 
would hold a Vesper service. I did not see the 
notice in time to attend Mass, but I did go to 
Vespers and Benediction. 

I can console myself with the thought that I 
embraced the first opportunity that I ever had of 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 165 

attending a service of the Catholic Church. To 
my eyes the church was strange and attractive. 
The priest, who was the new pastor, preached a 
controversial sermon dealing with the claims and 
divine mission of the Church. Here at the very 
beginning of my student life my mind and con- 
science were disturbed. All that night I dreamed 
about the sermon and what the priest had said. I 
had entered on a spiritual struggle which was to 
continue for four years, lasting through my entire 
college course, and which became to me a life and 
death struggle, during which time I should go over 
the whole range of controversy, and should ad- 
vance from the lower levels of so-called evangelical 
Protestantism up to the highest levels of the Ang- 
lican position, which should end just before I was 
nineteen years of age in my reception into the great 
Church which acknowledges the Bishop of Rome 
to be the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth. I had 
entered on a spiritual journey through the wilder- 
ness which God in his great goodness had short- 
ened to four years instead of forty; and just before 
its end he gave me a vision of the promised land 
from the heights of Nebo. But I lingered there 
satisfied with the scene that lay before my eyes 
and hesitated for a time before I resolved to cross 
the Jordan and find rest and happiness at the end of 
my weary journey. 

The contest had begun in my soul between God's 
grace and truth and the prejudices of birth and 



1 66 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

early education and surroundings. While my in- 
clinations and disposition had led me so early in 
my life to investigate the teachings of the Catho- 
lic Church I had considerable bigotry in my make- 
up. I was not prejudiced against persons on ac- 
count of language, race or religion, but on the 
contrary felt that diversities in such matters made 
the world more picturesque and life more inter- 
esting. But unconsciously to myself error and the 
bigotry of error even at that early age had be- 
come a part of my nature. 

To know and understand this proposition it is 
necessary to have some knowledge of a person's 
ancestors. As I said at the beginning of this nar- 
rative my ancestors were Puritans. Their blood 
had flowed down through the veins and hearts of 
nine generations into my veins and heart. Their 
thoughts, prejudices and characteristics had per- 
meated the brains and wills of a class and race 
of men among the most determined and tenacious 
that the world has ever known. Therefore to 
know me at that time it is necessary to speak of 
my New England ancestors. Among my ances- 
tors on my father's side were such men as Henry 
Adams of Braintree, the ancestor of two of our 
Presidents, John Adams, and John Quincy 
Adams; John Coolidge of Watertown, who is the 
ancestor of the present great grandchildren of 
Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United 
States, through Martha Jefferson, daughter of 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 167 

Thomas Jefferson; Jonathan Fairbanks, who built 
the old house at Dedham in 1636 which is believed 
to be the oldest occupied dwelling house within 
the limits of our country, and the ancestor of Vice 
President Fairbanks. Capt. George Fairbanks, 
son of Jonathan, moved farther into the wilderness. 
His son and grandson were physicians, father and 
grandfather of Lieutenant Joshua Fairbanks, a 
lieutenant of the Minute Men who marched to Bos- 
ton on that eventful day, April 19th, 1775. He 
married a cousin of John and Samuel Adams. It 
is from this patriotic couple that the writer of 
this narrative is descended. These pioneers of the 
new world married and intermarried until I can 
count among my ancestors the well-known fam- 
ilies of Ellis, Phillips, Newton, Livermore, Geary, 
Sheffield, Lovel, Bailey, the Scotchman William 
Douglas, ancestor of the late Stephen A. Douglas; 
the French Huguenot Roger Amidoun and 
others. On my mother's side I number among 
my forefathers the names of James Franklin, 
Thomas Pratt, and " Rev. George Phillips, the 
Puritan minister of Watertown. These men were 
not only Puritans, but they were the hardy pioneers 
of the wilderness, and among the founders of this 
great Western Republic. They have impressed 
their character on their descendants. We are in 
no sense a race of spineless men and have never 
lacked the courage of our convictions, and if neces- 
sary we can and will make sacrifices for them. 
12 



l68 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

But at the same time we are the heirs of heretical 
bigotry, which has been hastening during the last 
half century into irreligion by means of a godless 
public school system. An Adams woman, who 
also has Fairbanks' blood in her veins, once wrote 
to me from Boston : " What would Jonathan 
Fairbanks or Henry Adams have said to a Cath- 
olic priest as a descendant? I am wondering if 
it is not the old Puritan blood which gave you 
the courage to stand for what seemed right to you, 
even as those far-off ancestors dared to take their 
stand ! " To this I must answer with every con- 
vert. " By the grace of God, I am what I am," 
but to me the old Puritan blood was no drawback. 
Before I entered college I had read almost every- 
thing that came in my way, even many of my 
father's religious and controversial works. I had 
read the entire Bible, having been paid by my 
father for doing so, and had committed to memory 
a good portion of the four Gospels through a spirit 
of rivalry and ambition in Sunday-schools. Out- 
side of the Scriptures I cannot judge what in- 
fluence my reading had exerted on my religious 
sentiments. I know that it had tended to make me 
love my country, and nature, and to inspire me with 
a romantic love for the deeds and grandeur of the 
ancient Roman empire. The Bible had exerted over 
me a strangely fascinating influence, and I often 
wondered how it was possible that Christianity, so 
far as I knew it, had lost so much that was beauti- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 169 

ful and inspiring, and had fallen so far below what 
seemed to be divine in the Old Testament religion. 
In a word the religion of the old Law had clearly 
prefigured to me an ideal, and had prepared my 
mind for its glorious realization in the Catholic 
Church. And I saw nothing in the New Testa- 
ment which contradicted it. 

But the commentators, both in my father's library 
and elsewhere, had exerted and for several years 
continued to exert a distinctly vicious influence. 
With great pleasure I read and re-read the Book of 
Revelation. From every point of view it attracted 
me. But the commentators had fastened on my 
mind the nightmare of doubt; that the Pope 
might be Antichrist, the scarlet woman, and the 
beast with seven heads and ten horns which had 
taken the place of the dragon, the pagan Roman 
empire. Parents sometimes frighten children with 
stories of hobgoblins so that even when the child 
becomes a man and learns the truth — to hear 
these stories repeated will again make his flesh 
creep. In like manner the fiction of a papal Anti- 
christ conjured up by the crazy imaginations of 
commentators will cling to a man long after his 
reason has taught him better. Cardinal Newman 
acknowledges this to have been true in his own 
case. What wonder then that it should haunt the 
imagination of one groping in the dark where the 
light of divine truth has only begun to glimmer. 
In some cases even objects and customs which 



I/O so:me roads to rome in America 

bring to the minds of Catholics only piety and 
devotion, to one reared in prejudice against them 
they are liable to produce the very opposite effect, 
and for some time after one is convinced of their 
value and beneficial influence a mingled feeling of 
devotion and disquietude will at times come into the 
mind. For example, almost up to the time that 
I became a Catholic the image of the crucifix 
would sometimes suggest to me the feeling that 
devotion to it might perhaps partake of idolatry. 
A short time afterwards the sight of that sacred 
image would fill my soul with the holy thought and 
sweet love of the Crucified. 

A struggle was taking place in my soul be- 
tween God's grace and the powers of evil. Which 
should be the victor? Should heaven or hell tri- 
umph? 

I shall now try to remember and record some 
of the events in the history of my conversion. 

Very early in my college course I became ac- 
quainted with all the clergymen of the city includ- 
ing the Episcopalian rector and Catholic priest. 
There were some changes in their ranks during 
the four years I was there. I rarely visited any 
of them in their own homes with the exception of 
the rector and the priest. 

The first controversial book, from the Catholic 
point of view, that came into my hands was the 
"Trials of a Mind" by Dr. Ives, who had for- 
merly been the Protestant bishop, of North Caro- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 171 

lina. His position had been so much farther ad- 
vanced than mine that I could not sympathize with 
it at that time, and so it did not interest me suf- 
ficiently to finish reading it. The next book which 
I found in the library of one of our college so- 
cieties was the " Hughes and Breckenridge Contro- 
versy." Although it was a rather extensive work 
I read it to the end with intense interest, and with 
the conclusion that Father, after\vards Archbishop 
Hughes had the best of the argument. From 
that time on I read books on all sides of the ques- 
tion, some of them loaned to me by the priest and 
others by the rector; and when I was at home 
during vacations I again took up my father's con- 
troversial works on such subjects as Apostolical 
succession, the Rule of Faith, Baptismal Regenera- 
tion, and many others of a similar nature, with 
the curious result that through them I advanced 
almost farther on the way toward the end of my 
journey than through many of the books on the 
Catholic side. There may have been several rea- 
sons for this; I had more time to read them and 
think out the conclusions for myself, and the ob- 
jections of their opponents which they presented 
in a weak way I found, nevertheless, to be stronger 
than their answers. 

I did not wish to become a Catholic. The Cath- 
olic Church seemed to me to be a foreign church 
with foreign sympathies, and I realized that I 
should feel much more at home .with my own 



172 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

kindred and people than with those whose customs 
and characteristics were then strange and alien to 
me. 

Before I began my college course I desired to 
enter the army or navy, but my father, being a 
man of peace, strenuously objected to it. When I 
entered college I had determined to become a law- 
yer, for I saw that the highest places and honors 
in state and nation were open to members of that 
profession. It was not long however when God's 
will seemed to manifest itself in me that I was 
called to dedicate myself to His special service. I 
held back for some time and experienced a severe 
struggle before I finally concluded to abandon am- 
bition and make the sacrifice of becoming a min- 
ister of Christ. To make the sacrifice as complete 
as possible I decided to become a foreign mission- 
ary and to give up my life to the work in the 
East Indies. My father did not like the idea of 
separation, but my mother, ever generous when 
the service of God was the object, readily ac- 
quiesced, the more so because I had made up my 
mind never to marry, that I might give myself, 
more unresen^edly to the service of Christ. Even 
after I had become a Catholic I did not give up 
the idea of entering on missionary work in India. 

I cannot remember all the successive steps in the 
history of my conversion. I know that before I 
«was eighteen years of age I believed, at least ten- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1 73 

tatively, most of the doctrines of the Catholic 
Church. 

Almost at the beginning of my college course I 
had learned to make the Sign of the Cross and used 
it in all my private devotions, having become con- 
vinced of its primitive Christian use from a Protes- 
tant church history in my father's library. I be- 
lieved in the necessity of Apostolic succession for 
the validity of Holy Orders, in Baptismal Regener- 
ation, and in the Real Presence of Christ in the 
Holy Eucharist. I usually attended religious serv- 
ices three times each Sunday, dividing my attend- 
ance with the Baptists, Methodists, Congregational- 
ists, Episcopalians and Catholics. At one time the 
Episcopalian services were very attractive to me. 
There was a dignity and simplicity in their ritual 
that I liked, and the quaint and effective phrasing 
of simple but strong English captivated my heart. 
I can readily imagine what a sacrifice it must have 
been for many of the converts who for two score 
years or more had been charmed and consoled by 
it to give it up for an unaccustomed liturgy in a 
strange tongue. They would never have made the 
sacrifice were it not for the conviction that they 
were giving up a nonessential but attractive form 
with its sacred associations, for the essential reality ; 
a dear, quaint and hallowed, but empty casket, for 
another of strange pattern, newer in their eyes, but 
older and once the sacred treasure of their Fathers, 



174 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

which they know holds the jewels of Christ's bounty 
and the pearl of great price. 

About a year or more before I took the final step, 
a student in theology in a Catholic seminary, a con- 
vert, suggested to me that I should take up one 
distinctive Catholic doctrine at a time and make all 
the objections I could muster against it, and he 
would write me an answer. I accepted the sug- 
gestion and at once put it into execution. Although 
in some sense it proved satisfactory it was not con- 
tinued after the first effort. It did not reach the 
heart of the difficulty. I wrote him a long letter 
containing arguments against Transubstantiation. 
It was some time before I received an answer, but 
when it came it was a fairly good one. One thing 
in his letter rather surprised and hurt me; he indi- 
cated that I must have had help in my communica- 
tion. I knew no one who could have helped me. 
I do not believe there was any one within reach 
of me who could have presented the arguments and 
objections as I had done. The subject was so vital 
to me for time and eternity that I had studied, and 
grasped, and understood it, as I could under no 
other circumstances. My well-being in this world 
and in the world to come was at stake and de- 
pended on the final solution of these questions. I 
found out afterwards, when I was a student in the 
same seminary, the reason of his suggestion. He 
found my objections so difficult to refute that he 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 175 

himself had to go to the professor of theology to 
help him out in his answer. 

I shall now point out what in reality accom- 
plished more lasting results. As I have previously 
said, the conflict had become to me a life and death 
struggle. I plainly saw that the salvation of my 
soul depended on the outcome. I did not want to 
lose my soul, and I did not want to become a 
Catholic. So I read the works of some of the most 
learned and skillful Protestant writers I could find, 
and culled what seemed to me their most unanswer- 
able objections to Catholic doctrines. In every 
case when I called on the local priest and proposed 
the objection he merely explained the particular 
doctrine at issue and the objection entirely disap- 
peared. There was no need of controversy. The 
doctrine itself as taught by the Church was its own 
best defender. I soon came to learn that in most 
cases the objection to a Catholic doctrine is a man 
of straw who needs no knock; place him on his 
feet and he will fall of himself. Which is another 
way of saying that many of the supposed Catholic 
doctrines denied by Protestants were never taught 
by the Church. The name is often correct but it 
does not mean what they think it does. 

Father D was not a learned theologian. 

On the contrary his knowledge was rather superfi- 
cial, but he was quick and apt in wit and text. I 
could give a hundred instances, but I will illustrate 



176 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

by one example his quickness of irony against some 
foolish opinions of certain non-Catholics. A few- 
years after I became a priest he one day came sud- 
denly into the room where he found me reading my 
breviary. He instantly raised his hands in mock 
horror and exclaimed: " The country is in danger; 
a Yankee saying his breviary ! " He himself was 
a Belgian. 

All this time that I was confusing my brain try- 
ing to weigh arguments for and against the various 
different doctrines of the Church I was like one 
floundering in quicksands. By the time I was 
eighteen years of age I had come to believe all the 
doctrines of the Catholic faith as well as one is 
able to believe them without the divine teaching 
authority of the Church. I already understood the 
nature and necessity of religion, the necessity and 
existence of divine revelation, and the necessity of 
knowing the truths of divine revelation with cer- 
tainty. But the question yet remained to be 
brought home to me : " Where shall I find the di- 
vine teaching authority commissioned by Jesus 
Christ the Incarnate Word to teach all the truths 
of His revelation with infallible certainty?" 
More than a year before I became a Catholic 
I had taken up my last position, that the Church 
was infallible when speaking through a General 
Council which was such in fact, but not through a 
so-called general council which represented only a 
part of divided Christendom. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 1 77 

I again read " Trials of a Mind," by Dr. Ives, 
and now I understood it. I found that although 
I was yet young, barely eighteen, I had already 
suffered his trials, had taken up all his positions ex- 
cept the final one, and with a heavy heart had 
abandoned them. It was now forced on me by the 
logic of necessity that an infallible Church in order 
to fulfill its divine mission among men must be an 
ever-living teacher whose infallible voice should 
not be dependent on a divided Christendom. No- 
where else could such an ever-living teacher be 
found except in the Apostolic See of Peter. 

I now decided that I would become a Catholic, 
but would delay the final step until I was twenty- 
one years of age, which would be nearly three years 
from that time. About two months before I was 
nineteen I went to hear a lecture by a celebrated 
Jesuit missionary. The lecture was not in the 
strict sense controversial, but dwelt rather on the 
great danger of delay in corresponding with God's 
grace. After the lecture I called on the priest, who 
very soon discovered the state of my mind and in- 
vited me to his room. After a serious conversa- 
tion he told me that he was to leave the next fore- 
noon and that if I wished him to baptize me early 
in the morning I might kneel down at once and 
make my confession. I hesitated for a moment 
and then knelt down. It was probably as good a 
confession as I ever made. Early the next morn- 
ing I received conditional baptism. My godfather 



1/8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

was the convert student whom I have already men- 
tioned, who had been ordained a priest some six 
months before. I took for my patron saint St. 
Francis Xavier, for whom for some time I had 
great admiration and considerable devotion. A 
few days after I received my first Communion. 
At last I had returned to the religion of my fore- 
fathers. I have since learned that a number of my 
kinsmen with the name of Fairebanke, were priests 
of the Church just before -the time of the so-called 
Reformation. I have again taken up the line that 
was broken for nearly four hundred years. 

I did not at once make known publicly that I had 
become a Catholic although for months it had been 
suspected by my professors and others that I was 
liable to become one at any time. I wished to be 
the first to tell my parents of the step which I had 
taken. On arriving home I broke the news first 
to my mother and then to my father. It turned 
our home into a house of mourning and desolation. 
My father was at first stunned, and then completely 
overcome. I thought he could not sursave the 
blow. For hours his tears and half suppressed 
cries were heart-rendering. My mother wept in 
silence. It would have been easier for me to die a 
martyr's death than to suffer all this. How I 
longed for persecution that would bind me to the 
martyr's stake. Anything was to be preferred to 
seeing my parents' great grief. But in a few days 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 179 

the intenser fires of grief had burned themselves 
out. 

A few weeks more and I must leave my home 
to study for the priesthood. Here was a new trial. 
My father told me that if I left home for that pur- 
pose I must never return, his house could never 
again be my home, and he never wanted to see me 
or hear from me. But just before my departure 
he came to me and gave me to understand that a 
father's heart is oftener more tender than his 
words. He wanted me back as often as I could 
come home, and afterwards I spent all my vaca- 
tions at home. Two years before my mother died 
she became a Catholic, and I had the privilege of 
giving her the Last Sacraments. My father con- 
tinued to the end in Protestantism. I hope he was 
in good faith, for he was an honest man and I 
never even once heard him say anything against the 
Catholic Church in his sermons. 

One beautiful morning I went forth with a deso- 
late heart from my father's house, leaving a sor- 
row-stricken household behind me. I had obeyed 
the Voice of God saying to me : *' Go forth out of 
thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy 
father's house and come into the land which I shall 
shew thee." I went forth and came into a strange 
country, but '^ it was the promised land of the New 
Testament, the kingdom of God on earth." I have 
now been a priest for more than forty years, and 



l8o SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

O, how my heart goes back to those " who are not 
of this fold ! " In these forty years my hopes and 
expectations for the progress of the Church in this 
land in one sense have not been realized. Perhaps 
God is preparing the soil for a rich harvest. It is 
my own personal belief that we should make more 
of that great movement which in our time goes on 
under the name of " Corporate Reunion." In my 
later life far more than in former years my heart 
and prayers are with it. It promises more than 
any other movement, and its final success means the 
unity of Christendom and the conversion of the 
pagan world, when ** the kingdom of this world 
shall become the kingdom of our Lord and His 
Christ." Personally, as in the past so now only 
one course would be open to me, to make at once 
my individual submission to the successor of St. 
Peter. And when others take this course I rejoice 
with the Angels in heaven. But my heartfelt 
sympathy is with those Anglicans who seek to be 
again united with Rome by means of " Corporate 
Reunion." There can be no brighter hopes of suc- 
cess than with the great Anglican body which 
once belonged to the Holy See as one of its most 
faithful adherents, and which to-day contains such 
a large number of Catholic-minded men and women 
whose strong and earnest desire is to return to 
that ancient unity with which nearly a thousand 
years of their own most sacred associations and 
glorious history are interwoven. 



HENRY C. GRANGER, ESQ., 

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS. 
Late Rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church. 

*' How did I come to be a Catholic?" A 
question not to be answered in a word or without 
tracing somewhat at length one's religious training 
and life previous to that event. 

Born of orthodox Congregational parents, in old 
Massachusetts, a descendant in direct line of the 
famous Mather family — " Puritan of the Puritans," 
it came to pass that at the age of fifteen or sixteen 
I found myself a member of the Presbyterian 
Church in the City of Chicago, by " Profession of 
Faith." 

There was no marked experience accompanied 
with a violent transformation of nature — as in 
some instances. On the contrary, a gradual de- 
velopment of earlier instruction culminating in the 
purpose to be a Christian and to lead a life in har- 
mony therewith. I had been baptized in infancy, 
but no account was taken of that, as having any- 
thing to do with " joining the church " at the age 
indicated. 

The death of my father when I was but seven- 
teen altered the course of my life for a time — but 
i8i 



l82 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

at nineteen, with the fixed purpose to enter the min- 
istry I went to the University of Michigan, from 
which institution I graduated four years later. 

What of my rehgious tendencies and practices 
during that time? From a narrow view that it 
was sinful to attend any but a Presbyterian Church 
to one that was broad enough to go to the service 
of any denomination — save the Catholic which 
was simply not taken into the reckoning at all — . 
and to make the students' Y. M. C. A. my religious 
home. The church of early youth was not given 
up, only pushed gradually into a place where it 
shared with others my time and efforts. The end 
of the college career found me less sectarian but 
more religious. Then came a year of teaching 
with no privileges of my own denomination; suc- 
ceeded by three years in the Union Theological 
Seminary in New York City, graduating in 1875; 
soon after becoming an ordained Presbyterian 
Minister. 

Calvinistic Theology was, at times, a hard dose 
to swallow. There were various discussions 
amongst us, and once, I landed square in Pan- 
theism, from which I rescued myself by asserting 
my belief in a Personal God, but on the whole I ac- 
cepted the system, only, however, in its more liberal 
interpretations. 

For about twelve years I labored faithfully as a 
Presbyterian minister, under quite unusual outward 
conditions — meanwhile battling inwardly over the 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 183 

claims of " Episcopacy " versus " Presbyterianism." 
This mental conflict centered in and about Bap- 
tism and its significance. Especially the words of 
Christ to Nicodemus : " The Forgiveness of Sins " 
as voiced in His words to his Apostles : the '' Lay- 
ing on of Hands " — as one of the foundation doc- 
trines of the Faith : the '' Sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper " — as a necessary means of Grace : the doc- 
trines of Election — according to the teaching of 
Calvin — necessarily leading to Fatalism : and the 
question of ^' Apostolic Succession " in the Minis- 
try, especially associated with the *' Bishop " as a 
superior officer in the Church : the source of au- 
thority for the lower orders. The value of a 
Prayer Book in worship also received careful at- 
tention. 

After much study, balancing of probabilities, and 
prayer; but not much discussion with others, it all 
ended in my entering the ministry of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church; where I continued my work for 
some seventeen years. 

The course of thought that led me at last to re- 
nounce that faith is somewhat as follows: I had 
not been long a regularly established Rector, in a 
fine parish, when there appeared to my mind, quite 
unlooked for, a gap in the system of Church polity 
in which I was then a minister. This startled me. 
There was something missing; what was it? I 
could not then say. Later I came to understand 
that it was the lack of practical Apostolical author- 

13 



1 84 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ity. Why must there be this continual dependence 
upon the feeHngs and prejudices of the congrega- 
tion instead of that speaking with authority which 
was befitting the Church of Christ? 

Much of the language of the Episcopal Prayer 
Book had the right sound, especially in all those 
matters associated with '' High Church " and 
'' Low Church " and the actual application of such 
doctrines as Baptismal Regeneration, the Forgive- 
ness of Sins (with the confessional as its natural 
out-working) and the Real Presence in the Holy 
Communion; but the interpretations thereof were 
ofttimes diametrically opposed to each other. Why 
should there not be more unanimity of interpreta- 
tion on such vital matters among both clergy and 
laity? It is this continual effort to keep the peace, 
maintain the compromise, and harmonize absolutely 
contrary positions that wears one out and leads fi- 
nally to a condition of quasi-content or positive re- 
nunciation of the system. 

But, in giving up, unto what is one coming? 
Frankly, much that it is difficult to accept — save 
after long, careful and prayerful study of the entire 
question — Is the Pope the successor of St. Peter ? 
Did Christ give to Peter what He did not give to 
the other Apostles? Has he any successors? The 
difficulty resolves itself into a simple acceptance or 
rejection of our Lord's plain words to the First of 
the Twelve. Does the Priest in the name of Christ 
forgive the sins of the penitent ? Yes ! or No ! 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 185 

There is no middle ground. When Christ said, 
" This is my Body " speaking of the Bread he held 
in his hand, did He mean just that, or is it to be 
explained and rationalized away until there is 
nothing left? Has the Church of Christ at any 
time fallen into error or failed to teach all that He 
commanded? If so, then the Holy Ghost has not 
remained in and with her as Christ promised; the 
" Gates of hell '' have prevailed. Our Lord said 
these should not prevail ! 

Are there only Two Sacraments? Are we to 
distinguish between those established directly by 
Christ and those ordained by His Church, dwelt in 
and guided by the Holy Ghost? 

What of the Blessed Virgin Mary? Here is a 
great and crucial question — one of the knottiest 
problems that the Protestant enquirer must solve. 
It comes down to this: In connection with the In- 
carnation, absolute purity in the Virgin Mother was 
required. Whence comes this ? Not in the ordinary 
way certainly! A supernatural method is de- 
manded — this is given in the Immaculate Concep- 
tion of the Blessed Virgin, and in no other. As 
to the honor offered to her — in and by the Church 
— next to that given to Our Lord, a careful and 
quiet weighing of what the Angel Gabriel said — 
" Hail Mary ! full of Grace — blessed art thou 
among women ! " and the statement *' Mother of 
God," in their true relations ought to be, and are, 
sufficient answer to all questions. 



1 86 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Where is the Church Christ established amidst 
all the unending variety of names and organizations? 
There is but one that can make and substantiate 
such a claim. When, therefore, one arrives at 
this position, everything resolves itself into a simple 
matter of obedience thereunto. All the above 
questions arose for settlement, were considered, put 
on one side, and taken up again and again. The 
momentous questions of decision was postponed, the 
grace of God resisted, at least in part, for fear of the 
consequences of even the intellectual admission of the 
logic of the situation, until finally it was this : What 
must I do to be saved? Is the Roman Catholic 
Church the Church of Jesus Christ ? Believing that 
it is and that therein alone is found salvation, I asked 
for admission into it and submitted myself to its 
Divine Authority. 

From that day to this I have been at peace as re- 
gards any doubts and difficulties heretofore experi- 
enced, and I am, on the other hand more and more 
impressed with the ever marvelous Grace of God 
as seen in His Church, appropriated and expressed 
by that Faith w^hich our Lord himself best described 
when he said *' Except ye be converted and become 
as little children — ye cannot enter into the King- 
dom of Heaven." 



EDWARD LEE GREENE, PH.D, LL.D., 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, BUREAU OF PLANT 
INDUSTRY, NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, 
D. C. 

Member of California Academy of Science, National Geo- 
graphical Society ; American Member of the International 
Commission of Botanical Nomenclature, etc. ; author of 
Flora Franciscana, etc. 

The place of my nativity was very far from Rome. 
It seems needful to use that past tense of the verb; 
because the inhabited places of this planet, however 
stationary geographically, are wont to vary theolog- 
ically and pyschologically as to the distances that 
separate between them, and that venerable City 
of the Seven Hills. Realizing this fact of the 
spiritual mobilities of communities otherwise im- 
mobile, I could not venture to say that my native 
New England countryside is now so extremely far 
from Rome. I am only certain that it was so 
some sixty years since. 

Recalling very early memories, I believe that my 
first impression of Rome was derived from the 
school geography, which I learned and took some 
delight in when perhaps eight or nine years of age. 
Not that I remember anything that I may then have 
learned in the way of information about the city 
187 



l88 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

itself. What fixed itself in my mind was that, in the 
book, mention having been made of the form of gov- 
ernment in this or that country, the religion of the 
people was named; and here I learned the terms 
Protestant and Roman Catholic. Nothing of the 
meaning of the terms, as compared, was given 
either by book or teacher. There was no un- 
derstanding at all of what it was to be Protestant; 
nor did I know that the Episcopalians, Baptists of 
two denominations, Methodists and Quakers of our 
neighborhood were of the Protestant name. The 
word was meaningless. The expression Roman 
Catholic was not quite so. A child of ordinary 
intelligence studying geography must perceive that 
with this the city of Rome had somewhat to do ; 
is probably the center of its power and influence. 
Certain I am that it conveyed as much to me, and 
thereby became a name of some interest to me ; for 
wholly meaningless names engender no thought or 
interest; and Protestant was, as I have said, alto- 
gether unintelligible to me then. 

I recall the substance of conversations between 
elderly people which I heard in these very early 
years concerning Catholics, to the effect that they 
were foreigners who were beginning to have 
churches in all the cities, wherein strange and spec- 
tacular services were held ; also that this church and 
people, being foreign, were a menace to our civil 
institutions ; w^ere even deliberately planning the 
overthrow of our government. I do not think that 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 189 

I then identified these Catholics heard of as being 
in our cities, with that Roman CathoHc rehgion, 
the bare name of which I had learned in the geogra- 
phy. Indeed, it is improbable that I gave such a 
matter any thought; for these memories are of a 
time when I was between seven and nine years old ; 
but the recording of them here is pertinent, as at- 
testing on the part of a child a degree of receptivity 
to impressions about religion that may be some- 
what unusual. It is also to be noted, however, that 
the first definite impressions I had gained of the 
Catholic religion were unfavorable. I was prej- 
udiced against it, and that rather decidedly, before 
having reached the age of ten years. 

Prejudice is negative, and seems to imply a posi- 
tive. At ten years of age what had I in the way 
of positive religious beliefs and feelings? After 
the lapse of half a century and more it will not 
be possible to answer such a question except in a 
general way; and the answer must be from in- 
ference as much as from memory, or more. 

I am certain, however, that from still earlier 
years I believed in and reverenced the Sacred Scrip- 
tures; and my understanding of them, in as far as 
I knew them, was that which pious parents of the 
Baptist persuasion would inculcate. The night 
prayers taught us as children had been the Our 
Father, and *' Now I lay me," and the repetition of 
the words was always done, at least on my part, 
thoughtfully, reverently, and with more or less of 



I90 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

a deeper feeling. Here, then, was a childhood 
more or less under the benign influences of un- 
wavering faith and real prayer. The beginning 
had been made of the life of religion in the soul. 
Shall one say that already the first steps had been 
taken on the road to Rome? If the answer were 
required of me, it would be given in the one word : 
undoubtedly. For by Rome I mean simply the 
■Christian belief in its completeness. So that he 
who is environed in the belief of God and His 
Word, and who in that belief sincerely prays, is on 
the way to the City of the Fullness of Christian 
Faith. Not that he will of any necessity traverse 
the whole distance, or even any very considerable 
part of it. He may not pass beyond those very ear- 
liest stages of the journey. The hindrances are 
many, and they are mighty. 

The House of God, with the ministration thereof, 
should be the most careful fosterer of every germ 
of religion in the soul, even of a child. In the vil- 
lage a mile away from our home there was nothing 
that I ever heard called a House of God, nothing 
that any one ever spoke of as being a church. 
There were two neat square buildings painted white, 
and with green blinds that were usually closed over 
the square windows that were of small panes of 
plain glass. A square cupola, or belfry, sur- 
mounted the front end of the roof of each building. 
The interior of each was as plain as its exterior. 
These buildings were known to us by no other 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 191 

name but meeting-houses; an expression in which 
one finds no hint at rehgion. Meeting-houses are 
places where people meet; and people met in these 
for various purposes, according to the occasion; 
for in the larger of the two the town meetings, and 
the town elections were always held. 

It would not be expected of one reared in such 
environment that he should arrive at the understand- 
ing of a beautiful temple consecrated to God; a 
place set apart from all secular uses, and revered as 
sacred to the Divine Name and Presence ; a building 
whose very architecture, and all the particulars of 
its decoration, should teach religion and inspire it. 
No thought of any thing different from the meeting- 
house idea of religious services entered my mind 
until childhood, and almost boyhood, were passed. 
I was in attendance upon these regularly, with my 
parents, until eleven or twelve years of age, but 
without receiving any item of religious instructions 
that I can recall, or experiencing the deepening of 
religious feeling. Yet I have evidence enough that 
I was even then susceptible, and rather keenly so, 
to religious impressions. 

Once, when I may have been seven or eight years 
old, my maternal grandmother, who also was a 
Baptist, took me with her to the Quaker meeting- 
house one Sunday. I am sure that she seldom 
went there; though among our nearest neighbors 
and most esteemed friends were two or three 
Quaker families. But on this occasion she took me 



192 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

with her, and I was impressed. The building was 
more plain than our very plain Baptist meeting- 
houses. No belfry surmounted the shingled roof, 
but only a small square chimney, ^^^ithin there 
was not even a pulpit ; but only a platform at one 
end, on which were placed two or three of the 
plainest unvarnished wooden chairs. There was a 
fair congregation present, and others came later 
than we, men, women and children; but all were 
seated in the pews — if they would have so called 
them — no one appearing on the platform. We 
sat there in silence for perhaps nearly an hour. 
Not a word was spoken. Then one and another of 
the elderly members arose and passed out, and the 
rest quietly followed, some hand shakings and low 
neighborly greetings ended the meeting. And this 
silent meeting of this little Society of Friends 
deeply impressed me. There were two old men in 
that congregation, whom all of us school children 
of the village knew by sight and by name as 
Quaker preachers; but at the meeting each had his 
seat with the rest, in the body of the house, and 
neither of them so much as rose from his seat dur- 
ing the hour, or appeared in any other capacity than 
that of a speechless meditative worshipper like all 
the others. 

On the walk of a mile home-ward from this 
meeting my good grandmother must have found 
me inquisitive, and must also have responded; for, 
although I have never from that day, now some 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 193 

sixty years past, attended a meeting of Friends, or 
been inside one of their meeting-houses or even 
read a book in relation to them and their doctrines, 
I have, I think, a fair understanding of them ; some 
part of which, nevertheless, must have been ac- 
quired later, and from various unremembered 
sources. But the fact of my having been seriously 
impressed by that absolutely silent gathering — that 
meeting in the name of religion, which from 
its beginning to its ending was given to in- 
dividual speechless meditation — that I, a child, 
should have been strongly and favorably impressed 
by it, I have been wont to think of in later years 
as having been perhaps ominous of my predestina- 
tion to the faith of Rome. Nevertheless there will 
be here and there a reader who will wish to ask 
what ground there can possibly be for such a 
thought. What points of contact are there between 
tenets of the Society of Friends and of the Roman 
Catholic Church? The former, it will be said, by 
proscription of the sacraments, even those of Bap- 
tism and Eucharist — solemnly instituted by Christ 
and strictly enjoined on all his discipleship as es- 
sential to their being Christians — seem as if they 
had deliberately chosen not to be known as Chris- 
tians at all ; and the name of Friends — perfectly 
evasive, theologically — might be thought further to 
establish such a theory. At this first glance the 
Society of Friends will be adjudged as at about 
the farthest possible remove from the Catholic 



194 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Faith. But points of contact between these ex- 
tremes are manifest. With the Friends, at least as 
they were seen by me sixty years since, fashions 
in dress were as completely abjured, and as regu- 
larly provided against, as they are in Catholic con- 
vents and monasteries. In this and other matters 
of simplicity in daily life and conversation, they 
had their counterpart, not in any of the Prot- 
estant sects of the time, nor yet in the lives of ordi- 
nary Catholics, but in those schools of the higher 
Christian life, the Catholic religious orders, And 
that silent religious meeting of so long ago, which 
so impressed a child, although it happened to be a 
meditation only, because no one present was " in- 
wardly moved to speak," was a kind of meeting that 
has its analogue nowhere but in the regular daily 
meditation of Catholic religious communities. 

If, then, it be true that the Society of Friends, 
while ignoring the very fundamentals of Catholic 
belief, yet both invites and urges its membership 
to exercise — one may almost say to ascetic prac- 
tices — commonly considered to be rather above 
the aspirations of ordinary Catholics, and thought 
of as belonging to more advanced stages of Cath- 
olic religious experience, who is there who need 
doubt the existence of a distinctly Catholic tend- 
ency as inherent in practical Quakerism? And I 
have been informed by more than one member of 
their Society, resident in Philadelphia, that the de- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 195 

cline in their numerical strength and influence in 
that city — once the very Rome of the Friends — 
has coincided with many conversions from that de- 
nomination to the Roman Catholic Church, and 
many more to the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
And what I think I may again insist on is, that 
this is not so exactly an instance of the meeting 
of extremes; that the Friends' doctrine of a Holy 
Spirit, whose still small voice is to be listened for 
within, and their inculcating and practicing of sim- 
plicity, silence, meditation, and mental prayer — 
and all this, upon occasion, in even public wor- 
ship — are points of contact with even the higher 
phases of Roman Catholic Christian life and teach- 
ing. And so, I may at least be allowed to ques- 
tion whether it was not something like Catholic 
instinct which so reconciled me, a mere child, to the 
Friends' silent meeting of an hour's duration. 

Let it be granted that there is a certain grace of 
God that may be termed Catholic instinct; it will 
also be conceded that human nature is more or less 
under the sway of impulses that often easily coun- 
terpoise and overrule the better instincts. 

Among several theses which I should like to take 
under serious consideration but never shall, there 
is this one: Whether an intense love of every- 
thing in the natural world is favorable rather than 
unfavorable to the development of religion in the 
soul. It is a large topic, comprehensive, and with 



196 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ramifications; one not here to be entered on save 
in so far as may be needful to the better under- 
standing of the case in hand. 

It is certain that a most unusual degree of sus- 
ceptibility to the charms of living things, of beauty 
in the out-of-door world was congenital with me. 
Before I was old enough to even begin to know 
myself, I seem to have been known at home and 
in the neighborhood as a small child singularly 
given to solitary saunterings all up and down the 
meadows and pastures, by brookside and along the 
woodland borders; returning always with some 
floral trophies from each expedition, and de- 
manding the names of such as I had no names for. 
Every living thing, whether tree, or bush, or flower, 
all birds, reptiles and fishes, were things of won- 
der and of beauty. There was a rapture in the 
time of the blooming of tulips and daffodils in the 
gardens, and of the appearing of wood anemones, 
marsh marigolds and violets by the brookside; an- 
other in the time of apple blossoms, and yet an- 
other when certain of my school companions carried 
large bunches of white snowball and red peony to 
school. There were other days of rapture at the 
other side of the year, when we gathered nuts in 
the groves of chestnut and hickory, golden-rod 
from along the fences, and fringed orchis and 
dazzling eyebright from the stream banks. The 
elevated flight of wild waterfowls in angled pha- 
lanxes, northward in spring, southward again in 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 197 

autumn ; the sudden coming of the small song birds 
in the later spring, and of the twittering chimney- 
swifts in early summer, were events of great note 
in the calender of my early boyhood. Veritable 
paradises were the bits of mossy cranberry bog 
when arethusa bloomed in the midst of them, and 
calopogon along their moist sandy borders; and 
such again were the huckleberry pastures, with 
their wealth of berries, their own particular trees 
and shrubs, and their adorning of purple and of 
golden autumnal weeds and flowers. And nature, 
in New England, as elsewhere, had for me its 
larger and more overpowering aspects. There 
were the blue, dreamy and almost mythic distant 
hills, so far away that they could not have tempted 
the meanderings of a sane small child. Then, from 
one or two favored elevations not so remote, there 
were misty glimpses of the ocean ten miles away; 
there was the frequent display of billowy clouds 
piled one above another in half-sunny summer 
skies; also the sublimity of the starry firmament 
at night. All these things profoundly — I won- 
der if also religiously — impressed me as a child, 
and have always done so. 

Such slavery of devotion to nature, such ready 
susceptibility to its thousand fascinations, is an 
uncommon psychological constituent, and must 
needs be considered well and seriously in its bear- 
ings on the fuller development of one's religious 
nature. Indeed, that very devotion to nature's 



198 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

beauties and sublimities is in itself a kind of re- 
ligion, and in its way powerful. Are we not even 
told in a thousand books and dissertations that the 
early ethnic religions, with their priesthoods and 
ceremonials, were but different phases of the wor- 
ship of nature? Under Christian enlightenment, 
then, and with certain fundamentals of revealed 
religion already active as living principles within, 
it is still easily supposable that an inordinate pas- 
sion for nature should stay the progress of the 
Christian religion toward its conquest of a soul. 

It is also possible that the contemplation of 
nature shall both confirm religious faith already 
implanted, and inspire devotion. 

I am certain that in my own case this passion 
for the visible universe and for all things in it 
great and small, considered along with certain men- 
tal traits and aesthetic tastes, the development of 
which it has fostered, has been in some ways fa- 
vorable, in others pointedly adverse to my progress 
Romeward; always understanding by this figure 
the true Christian Religion. 

I shall now name a little book, a children's primer 
of a certain science, which, when I was six and 
seven years of age, was my particular delight 
among all booklets at that time known to me. The 
title of it was ''Botany for Beginners/' etc., by 
Mrs. Phelps, better known in her day as Mrs. Lin- 
coln and Mrs. Lincoln-Phelps. The ability to con- 
firm religious belief and enkindle devout feeling 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 199 

while leading the very young to an acquaintance 
with the beautiful in the plant world, was pos- 
sessed by this writer in an eminent degree. On 
page after page of this primer of science she in- 
culcates the idea that all nature is but one expres- 
sion of the Divine; another revelation of the God 
of Sacred Scripture. That the reader may more 
definitely apprehend the essential religiousness of 
this children's book of botany, I must cite from 
it a representative sentence or two. Its first chap- 
ter is given to a statement of the advantages of 
botanical study. Seven reasons are set forth why 
children should be taught its rudiments. In the 
last two occur the following expressions : " Botany 
leads us to love and reverence God. Flowers are 
presents which our Heavenly Father gives us. It 
is therefore proper that we should examine and 
study them. We see that He who made them must 
be wiser and more powerful than the greatest of 
men — for what man could make the least plant ? 
We can imitate flowers in wax and various other 
ways, but who can give them life? 

None can the life o£ plant or insect give 
Save God alone " 

Religious instruction and suggestion of this type 
is plentifully distributed here and there through- 
out the booklet; the whole thus revealing the au- 
thor as one of firm faith and sincere piety. 

My own intense interest in the booklet was born 



200 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

of my ardent fondness for plants, and a wish to 
learn all that I could about them. I am sure I 
was never tired of reading and re-reading it at 
intervals until, by the time I was eight or nine years 
old I had outgrown it, and other books of science 
had taken its place. But its lessons of religion 
were effective; so genuinely so, that when in larger 
boyhood, after this first primer had been laid aside, 
I anywhere in my botanizings came upon some 
hitherto unseen beauty of brookside, or bog 
meadow, or woodland shade, it recalled the thought 
of God, and was at least momentarily the inspirer 
of religious feeling. Here, then, out of my be- 
loved book of infantile botany I had rather well 
learned a lesson in religion which I had not learned, 
or ever could have learned, by means of the many 
sermons I had heard in the meeting-houses. But, 
let the preaching that I heard there be credited with 
having helped to inculcate more deeply one truth; 
that, however, as an object lesson rather than an 
oral one. The only thing in the place which had 
the appearance of being sacred was the large Bible, 
resting on a velvet cushion on top of the pulpit. 
The preacher read his texts from this, then ex- 
pounded them as excerpts from the Word of God. 
All this was plain to a child; and he, though un- 
able rationally to follow and understand the ex- 
positions, might none the less realize, by the means 
indicated, a deepening of his impression of the 
sacredness of Holy Scripture. If I search every 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 201 

nook of memory, and inspect with care each prob- 
able help to my early and firm belief in the Scrip- 
tures, it is because I have long felt that such be- 
lief is a most important item of Catholic truth. 
He who holds it has made at least a good day's 
march toward Rome. The book is not Protes- 
tant but Roman Catholic, and that from its begin- 
ning to its end. I have been wont to express this 
view in the hearing of one and another little cir- 
cle of Protestant friends during some twenty years 
past ; and have done it with so much of the peculiar 
emphasis of conviction as has usually preserved 
it immune from challenge. It was even as a public 
expounder of the Scriptures that, out of them I 
preached myself into the Roman Catholic faith. 
What is more ; there was here and there an auditor 
who, convinced by these expositions of the Sacred 
Word, passed on and reached the City of God 
well in advance of the expositor. 

II 

The twelfth year of my age was revolutionary, 
in a way; not, however, as regards any new re- 
ligious impulse or awakening, for there was no 
Irace of either; but it was the year of our removal 
as a family from southern New England to that 
which, fifty years since, was a part of the far 
West. If I had been but an example of uncom- 
mon juvenile religiousness, such a mere change of 
location might have signified nothing worth men- 



202 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

tioning in the history of one's rehgious develop- 
ment. I was far from being that. I think I had 
a firm faith in God and His written Word. I was 
therefore ready to accept as true anything that I 
might read therein; That w^as all. I was well 
disposed toward religion. For the rest, my daily 
and always dominant impulses were those of the 
most devoted and enthusiastic young naturalist. I 
may seem to have given already more than a suf- 
ficient intimation of this bent of my mind; though 
really I have not given a tithe of the evidence I 
possess of the extravagance of my fondness, even 
as a small child, for everything I saw in nature. 
It was decidedly more than a mere bent of mind 
and if in these pages I often advert to this ruling 
passion, it will be because the true record of my 
interior life, even as to religion, cannot be made 
without it. Were I to select the merely theologic 
paragraphs of my life history and present these as 
the milestones of my journey Rome ward, leaving 
all else out of view, there would be in that but the 
skeleton of a biography, even as to religion; and 
it would also seriously misrepresent; for the 
various hindrances, the powerfully distracting, and 
even effectively repellant influences that made my 
progess thither devious, and prolonged it during 
forty years, w^ould have been left out of the account. 
For the journey to the new home far away on the 
prairie frontier I had good mental equipment in the 
way of pictures in my boyish imagination. Every- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 203 

thing I had read, and the many things I had been 
told about the aspects of nature in those regions had 
been treasured in my mind and kept together. Of 
course there was reason why my store of informa- 
tion of this kind should have been considerable. 
When I was not yet six years old the teacher of 
the village school in summer spoke of me as her 
botanist; and from a time quite as early, my elder 
relatives seem to have known that I was best en- 
tertained by being shown some new plant or flower 
or by listening to their accounts of things of na- 
ture they had met with in their own journey ings 
away from home. My paternal grandmother, 
when a young wife and mother, had dwelt for 
some years in what were then — in 1818 to 1820 
— the frontier settlements of western New York. 
She had often gratified me with some account of 
the early life on the New York state frontier, the 
strange points in which, were that they had scarcely 
roads, or the usual easy vehicles for getting from 
place to place, and that women and children even, 
as well as men, conveyed themselves hither and 
thither on horseback, whatever the occasion; also 
that they lived not exactly in houses like ours, but 
in rude cabins built of logs laid one upon another. 
These matters were of great interest to me, and 
I have now long known why; for the born natur- 
alist is of his very birthright an ethnologist. Hu- 
man beings, their different environments, varying 
modes of living, different customs, etc., are a part 



204 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

of nature ; even the most significant part of it. But 
this information about western life, manners and 
domestic economy were supplemented by the names, 
modes of growth and uses of several wild plants 
common in the wildwoods of the West, such as it 
was certain I had not seen; for this one of my two 
grandmothers was fond of plants, and grew some 
in her own garden that were always a particular 
delight to me because I never could meet with 
them anywhere else. 

Of the very much more distant West, the prairie 
regions, I had also my mental pictures. Over and 
above all that a geography-loving boy of ten had 
gathered in by reading, and by listening to the 
narrations of men who had been there, I had now 
a rich accession of knowledge from my mother, 
who 'had been spending some months with rela- 
tives afar in the midst of the then very thinly 
settled prairies of central Illinois. She, to whom 
I owe the inheritance of this impassioned predilec- 
tion for nature and all things beautiful, had the 
skill to picture to me vividly the glories of the 
springtime as she had seen them on the prairies, 
and in the then almost virgin forests of the Sanga- 
mon River in 1854. 

The matured and educated traveler in lands be- 
yond the sea realizes no keener pleasure than was 
mine as a boy, when, in passing by rail through 
western New York in the June of 1855, I saw what 
the log cabins were like that I had heard of, and 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 205 

perceived along the road clumps of bushes of species 
unknown to me, and patches of flowers which I 
guessed to be the same in kind that my grandmother 
had described to me. Then, a few days later, in 
the new domicile builded on the verge of a wild 
forest, with miles of nearly unbroken prairie in the 
foreground, I was in paradise. The superabundant 
wealth of the whole country in new forms of plant 
life and animal life kept me long in a state some- 
thing like rapture. And the ethnological aspect of 
this environment had its attractions. The scattered 
settlers, and the some hundreds of the people of 
the town a mile away, had almost all been im- 
migrants from the South. They had their own 
social customs, and, most striking of all, to my 
ready ear, their linguistic provincialisms. I noted 
that some of their names for the commonest ob- 
jects were other than those by which we knew the 
same; and in our intercourse with them, we chil- 
dren at least, soon learned and used their terms. 
Even their religion — at least that of the few who 
did not ignore the whole subject — had its peculiar 
phases; not, however, of such significance as tO' 
merit further mention; for I can recall nothing in 
this environment which influenced me at all in a 
religious way. 

The summer following witnessed our exodus as 
a family northward to Wisconsin. The school 
facihties were excellent here, considering the new- 
ness of the country, and I, at thirteen years of age. 



206 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

was now devoted to study in the public graded 
schools. Our home was a suburb in the then 
young and thriving city of Janesville. It was an 
epoch of much railway building in this part of the 
West, and this town just then was one of the 
centers of such activity. Our daily walk to school 
and back lay through a very considerable colony 
of foreign railroad laborers; and this colony was 
of much interest to the still ardent boy naturalist 
and ethnologist. Their odd-looking dwelling 
places were ranged closely together by dozens near 
the railway, and on railway land I am quite sure. 
They were all such small huts, between the 
hemispherical and the conical shape, as recalled 
those I had seen pictures of in books of geography 
and travel, as representing the habitations of un- 
civilized peoples in far away countries. They were 
low and seemed to have been constructed almost 
wholly of uniform squares of prairie sod laid one 
above another; but one could see that there had 
been at first a palisade of slabs and boards set on end 
and converging a little at the summit, over which 
the sod walls had been laid up; wath also roof 
boards sustaining the sod roof. I noted the re- 
markable adaptability of these rounded sod dwell- 
ings so protective against the severity of the Wis- 
consin winter; and perceived that the dwellers in 
them were not at all what could be called un- 
civilized. Everything was cleanly in front of, and 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 20/ 

around, the domiciles outside, and the women who 
kept them, old and young, were most respectably 
clad, though in old country mode of dress. In a 
word, it was a comfortable and really thrifty colony 
of new immigrants from Ireland. In our quite, 
isolated Rhode Island countryside there were no 
foreigners; for the occasional Irish laboring man, 
or household servant, was not exactly thought of 
as a foreigner; and up to the time of my first in- 
terest in this western colony, I had never known 
that this people had a language all their own. 
When once, after their working hours and near 
nightfall I sauntered along their turf-built village, 
and groups of men were resting outside, smoking 
clay pipes and holding animated conversation, I 
observed with wonderment that not a syllable was 
to me intelligible. Language was always to me 
one of the mysteries; and, if I mistake not, it is 
much of the nature of an enigma to the profound- 
est and most philosophic ethnologists. Having 
been bookish no less than naturalistic almost from 
infancy, and being now at thirteen a venerator of 
all knowledge of whatever kind, these hard-handed, 
rude-visaged laboring men fresh from Ireland, 
took a sudden rise in my estimation, because of ' 
their ability to converse with equal readiness in 
two languages which sounded — as I now know 
that they really are — so utterly different. I ought 
not to pass this incident without saying, in proof 



2o8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

of the complete rural provincialism of my life up 
to that time, that this was my first listening to 
speech in any foreign language. 

Now from this same community of foreigners 
— henceforth to my thinking foreigners because 
they had a foreign language — with none of whom 
I ever held a minutes' converse, I gained as by ac- 
cident the suggestion of something new about re- 
ligion. One Saturday morning in the month of 
April, as I strolled forth toward the open country in 
quest of any signs of spring in the world of plant or 
animal life, I chanced to meet what seemed like the 
whole of this Irish community, in Sunday clothes, 
coming home from Church. It seemed to me al- 
most as if they had lost the run of the days of the 
week and mistaken Saturday for Sunday; and my 
curiosity was aroused to the pitch of asking a group 
of them why they had been to Church on that day 
of the week. A motherly appearing woman of 
middle age answered kindly : ** It's Holy Satur- 
day." It was my first intimation that there were 
people who kept sacred any other day but what 
was known as the " Weekly Sabbath." I had never 
yet heard or read so much as the names of Easter, 
Ascension Day or Pentecost, not to speak of Epiph- 
any and All Saints. These great Christian fes- 
tal days were as unknown to us Rhode Island 
Baptist and Friends' Society country children of 
sixty years since, as were the ritual observances 
of the Mahometans of western, or of the Buddhists, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 209 

of farther Asia. I myself have witnessed from its 
very first beginnings — which I should say were 
almost within the last thirty years — that move- 
ment that has restored to some observance, in even 
the most extremely Protestant organizations, of 
Christmas, Good Friday and Easter. When our 
friends the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians 
and Unitarians remember, and religiously celebrate, 
these great days of the Roman Calendar, they 
are facing Rome ward, and we rejoice. 

On the morning when I had learned that there 
was in Christendom a Holy Saturday, that was 
all I knew of the Catholic ritual year. I was 
unaware that the day before had been Good Friday, 
and the day following would be Easter Day. As 
I said before, I had not so much as heard the 
names of these great days. The manner of my 
learning about the other great Catholic feasts I ap- 
prehend may read as a fairy tale; but I shall re- 
late it. I am confident no other native American 
youth on the road to Rome — even attaining that 
happy destination without having crossed the 
sea — acquired from foreigners in America — 
Protestant foreigners at that — and in their lan- 
guage only at first, the names of the feasts which 
he only some years later learned to know by their 
English names of Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Good 
Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and All 
Saints. But at the time long ago when these 
things happened, and in the region where then my 



2IO SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

lot was cast, it was only easy and natural that such 
an experience should befall a boy constituted as I 
was with strong predilections for the study of 
everything that was out of doors, from wayside 
weeds to forest trees, from shells and insects to 
birds and beasts and men of different races, na- 
tionalities and tongues. In the years from 1857 
to 1859, as I remember them, southern Wisconsin 
then so new, became the chosen destination of 
many thousands of immigrants from Norway, a 
land and a people, the accounts of which as read 
in books, had made me curious about these im- 
migrants. I viewed them in their quaint, ungainly, 
peasant costumes and listened to their unintelligible 
speech, with all interest. Such of this people as 
had been here a few years were filling all the places 
open for fann laborers and domestic servants every- 
where. 

During the long summer vacations of the three 
years named above — the years from 14 to 16 of 
my age — I was favored with clerical employment 
by a man of wealth who had extensive farming, 
inn-keeping and mercantile interests in a certain 
town on the line of a railway. My daily occupa- 
tions held me in converse with a small multitude 
of Norwegians, men servants without, and women 
servants within doors. All these used only their 
own language among themselves. At the end of 
my second summer in the place, none of them ever 
spoke to me but in Norwegian. In the third sum- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 21 1 

mer, Norwegian immigrants, strolling in front of 
the buildings while their trains were side-tracked 
for a half-hour, were wont to look very incredu- 
lous and almost shake their heads, when Ameri- 
canized countrymen of theirs affirmed to them that 
the boy they had been talking with was an Ameri- 
can, none of whose ancestors even had seen 
Norway. 

It is no marvel at all if a youth of ordinary in- 
telligence, especially if endowed with ethnologic 
curiosity, under most favorable conditions masters 
a new language; but it is more and more a marvel 
to me, as I make inventory of my stock of earliest 
Catholic information, to note how much of it I 
gained from these Protestant foreigners, through 
having acquired their language. These were a 
rather religious people, of the Norwegian State 
Church, an ecclesiastical establishment that should 
have been called High Church Lutheran ; and while 
those whom I knew^ were located at a distance of 
some fifteen miles from the nearest church of their 
communion, not one of them ever entered any one 
of the Baptist, Methodist, or other meeting-houses 
of the village; and some, on holy days, might be 
seen reading their Norwegian prayer books. These 
were the first prayer books I had ever seen. I had 
not even heard that there were such books. 
These contained, first of all, what seemed a regu- 
larly constituted order of public worship. There 
was a special Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for every 



212 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Sunday in the year, and every Sunday in the year 
had its particular name or designation. There 
were to be read here and there rubical directions 
for the official conducting of the service, and this 
service was called a name which translated in Eng- 
lish would be High Mass. When, some years 
later, I had come to know both the Anglican Book 
of Common Prayer and the Roman Missal, I saw 
the Norwegian ritual as intermediately between the 
two, that is, more Roman than the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer. From these people I first learned 
that there was such a rite as Confirmation; to 
which they were all admitted when passing from 
childhood to youth; but only a^ter special instruc- 
tion and preparation by the priest himself. After 
that they first went " to the altar," as the expres- 
sion was. I also first understood from these peo- 
ple the doctrine of the importance of the sacra- 
ment of baptism. No child was to be permitted to 
die unbaptized. Any layman, or woman should 
administer baptism in case of sudden necessity. 

This by no means ends the account of what I 
learned of Catholic truth and usage from these 
High Church Protestant Norwegian peasants; but 
the story must not be prolonged. It will be 
thought an extraordinary route by which to have 
gained one's first views of Catholic doctrine, and 
of liturgical public worship. The ritual year with 
its cycle of feasts, some more solemn, others less 
so, some concurring with Sunday, others sanctify- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 213 

ing equally days that occur in the midst of the 
week; the several sacraments and their sanctifying 
efficacy — all these and other points of really 
Catholic teaching and practice might more easily 
have come to my knowledge by means of service 
books in English, either Anglican or Roman; but 
the fact is, they never had been met with. I have 
shown before that what had started me in this un- 
wonted direction had been the impulse of the na- 
ture student's desire to investigate even unknown 
peoples and their ways; a thing which is never 
possible of accomplishment to the full, without 
mastering the language of such people. 

The effect of these definite impressions of some- 
thing new in religion was marked, and has never 
been effaced. It must therefore here be taken 
some note of; not, however, to the extent of at- 
tempting rationally to account for the effect; for 
that I could not have done at that time. It was 
only at a later period that I was able to see how 
those effects had been wrought, and what the ra- 
tional cause of them had been. I think that the 
one general impression I had, might have been in- 
dicated thus: that there was in substance a great 
deal more to that liturgical public religion, as I 
had read it and heard about it, than there was to 
that which I had been used to from infancy; or, 
to state it differently: I was placing a higher in- 
tellectual estimate upon this High Church Prot- 
estantism, as I may call it, than upon the formless, 



214 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

creedless, most vague and intangible kind of re- 
ligion which was all that I had known about until 
now. Once more, and to be a trifle less abstract: 
as regards instruction in the truths of Christianity, 
if one could have gained all that the one religion 
considered necessary, within a week, that called for 
by the other would have required so much more 
time that we may safely place it at two months. 
By way of illustration: if at the time about which 
I am writing, I could not have named in succession 
five great events in our Lord's infant life, it was 
because I do not think there could have been found 
in the membership of the Church of my more im- 
mediate forefathers a preacher who could on his 
part, have enumerated them without having first 
taken time for a specially careful perusal of the 
early chapters of all the Gospels. No event but 
the Crucifixion was dwelt upon in public teaching 
and preaching, nor even that event itself, so much 
as certain theological deductions therefrom. In 
the thought and teaching of these men, from whom 
I had learned what I knew of Christianity, the Cruci- 
fixion and death alone, and not the whole life of 
Our Lord from infancy forward, availed for us 
and w'as made part of the substance of our re- 
ligion. Yet there was not a public service in the 
whole ear that was made commemorative of the 
Crucifixion and death of Christ, nor was there one 
in commemoration of the Nativity; for there was 
not, at least in our little provincial comer, and 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 21 5 

among us children there, the knowledge that our 
little Christmas merry-making in reality marked 
the day of Christ's birth. It had not with us a 
whit more religious meaning than had the Fourth 
of July. As for the weekly Sabbath, every one 
of these was devoid of any specifically Christian 
significance. The only event it commemorated, 
from the year's beginning to its end was an epoch 
in the history of the people of Israel — at least 
with our wing of the Baptist sect, who kept liter- 
ally the seventh day of the week — and the only 
authority for keeping it at all was the Law as given 
by Moses. It was not even a Christian observ- 
ance at all, save as by adoption. 

Now as compared with this, what greater 
breadth and depth of religion was that which found 
matter for pious grateful thought, and incentive 
to religious devotion, in every incident of the In- 
carnation, from the Conception to the Ascension 
and the coming of the Holy Ghost; how much 
more rationally, more distinctively, even more . in- 
tensely Christian is such an established order of 
divine worship as makes each passing year tell 
over again to all the Church the whole story of 
our Lord's Incarnate Life, and of the first found- 
ing of the Church. I did not reason out this mat- 
ter at the time of this, my earliest intimation of 
the Christian Year. It was only a profound im- 
pression that I had received; a kind of mental 
awakening to the fact that there was really much 

15 



2l6 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

more to the Christian religion than I had hitherto 
had any intimation of. I was also entirely un- 
aware that this book of public prayers and Scrip- 
ture lessons in use by a Protestant nation, had 
been in every part borrowed from the Catholic 
liturgy; that in everything within it which seemed 
to me new, appropriate, instructive and beautiful, 
I was learning and admiring and being attracted 
to the Catholic religion. Is there such a gift of 
God to benighted but sincere souls as may be called 
a Catholic instinct? I have not heard, and I do 
not know. 

Ill 

The seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth years 
of my life were those of a college student. I was 
connected with no religious body and was unbap- 
tized ; for Baptist children — the paradox must be 
allowed — are not admissible to the Baptist King- 
dom of Heaven; and now that I had outgrown 
childhood, and was sometimes urged to enter the 
ancestral fold, my religious inclinations — I dare 
not say instincts — were leading me, I could not 
have said whither, but certainly not in that direc- 
tion. I had never yet seen a Catholic Church, or 
clergyman, or conversed on religion with a Catho- 
lic layman or woman. 

Among books of religious biography and history 
which I read during this period Was D'Aubignes' 
History of the Reformation, a Protestant history. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 2iy 

The work had been in our little family library ever 
since I could remember; and having once begun 
its perusal, I found it interesting. When I had 
read it my sympathies were all on that Catholic 
side of the controversy, which the historian him- 
self had, of course tried to demonstrate as the 
wrong side. But that which, as far as I was con- 
cerned, was the very definite and important out- 
come of the perusal of this book was, that Luther^s 
argument against the Zwinglians, and in favor of the 
doctrine of the Real Presence, convinced me thor- 
oughly that this must be the true doctrine. On 
this article of faith — this central mystery of the 
Catholic religion — I have never had a doubt from 
that day to this. And a little piece of theological 
investigation followed naturally upon this theolog- 
ical discovery. For example; it was evident from 
the book of history I had been reading, that at the 
time of what was called the Reformation, there 
was a considerable body of Protestants to whom 
communion was nothing at all but a social and 
religiously commemorative partaking of bread and 
wine together. Certain others, also Protestant — 
for such had been Luther and his party — held 
as firmly the other doctrine. It was reasonable I 
should wish to know what the doctrine of the 
Lord's Supper was with each of the less than a 
half dozen Christian denominations that I then had 
ready means of knowing something of. The way 
I went about the investigation is characteristic of 



2l8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

this investigator. I did not go questioning min- 
isters of the various denominations. That would 
have been to engage in controversy and waste 
precious time; also it was not necessary. As to 
the two or three different kinds of Baptists, I had 
witnessed their communions. They received what 
they called the " elements " sitting in their pews, 
as passed to them by the deacons of the congrega- 
tion. I assumed that this complete unceremonious- 
ness, this absence of every sign of special reverence 
in the transaction, must betoken that Baptists were 
Zwinglians. The conclusion was of course cor- 
rect. Nevertheless, it is possible, indeed it is quite 
probable, that I should not have come to any con- 
clusion about it had it not been for a comparison 
I was able to institute, by memory, between this 
communion rite and that of two somewhat dif- 
ferent bodies of Methodists, both of which I had 
witnessed. These people, instead of sitting upright 
in their pews and taking bread and wine passed 
to them by deacons, arose and went forward in- 
dividually, knelt at an altar railing, and received 
the elements directly from the minister, and then 
retired to their seats. This very different cer- 
emony seemed as if it must imply a very dift'erent 
faith regarding the Lord's Supper. What should 
this particularly humble and prayerful posture, as- 
sumed at the moment of receiving, mean but a 
belief in the Real Presence? The conclusion was 
unavoidable; though in itself, and in this instance, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 2ig 

it was wrong. By readings in the early history 
and the later tenets of Methodism, which this line 
of investigation had led to, it became apparent that 
this which I may call the ceremonial of the Real 
Presence had by historical incident, and as matter 
of ancient usage, been retained by a people who 
had lost belief in that article of Christian faith. 

In the course of this study my mind reverted to 
those Norwegian State Church prayer books, in 
which I had first learned of the yearly cycle of 
Christian Holy days; and I recalled that the people 
who used them called themselves Lutherans. It 
seemed now almost certain that the doctrine of the 
Real Presence must be a part of the Norwegian 
State Church creed; and so it is. 

When about nineteen years of age, happening to 
be in the city of Madison, Wis., over Sunday, I 
made use of the opportunity — the first I had ever 
had — of attending mass. It was the last mass of 
the day. The church was a spacious one, well ap- 
pointed, doubtless, and the congregation was 
large and evidently made up of people in various 
stations of life, high and low. I say this because 
my impression had been that none but foreigners 
of the poorer and less intelligent classes, were 
Catholics. The reader, who will understand the 
strange deviousness of my Road to Rome must 
know that I had not yet learned anything whatever 
of the Catholic religion as such. I was already 
a believer in much and very important Catholic 



220 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

doctrine, but without knowing that it was Catholic. 
I did not even doubt the Real Presence as one of 
the conditions of sacramental communion, yet I 
had no intimation of the fact either that the Cath- 
olic mass was essentially the original of all Prot- 
estant communion services, or that the Presence 
was continued on Catholic altars by reservation. 
So the mass itself was meaningless to me; as were 
also the bodily reverences paid by all to the Divine 
Presence. That which is meaningless does not 
conciliate or attract. But before the conclusion 
of the service there was a sermon; and that was 
not meaningless. I even gained from it a new and 
important theological idea. The Sunday must 
have been the eleventh after Pentecost, for the 
Gospel was that of the miraculous giving of speech 
to the dumb man; the sermon being an exposition 
of that Gospel, and more particularly of our Lord's 
final word to the subject of the miracle: " See thou 
tell no man ; " the argument being that the preach- 
ing of the Gospel is not to be undertaken by any 
one and every one who may feel a grateful impulse 
thereto, but only by such as have been ordained 
and authoritatively sent to that work. It was the 
doctrine of ecclesiastical authority as here supreme, 
and of the Christian unlaw^fulness of presuming to 
teach religion publicly without apostolic ordina- 
tion and mission. The thought, though then I 
believe, quite new to me, made a lasting impression, 
which is the more significant in view of the fact 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 221 

that the priest was not above mediocre ability and 
force as a preacher. It was my first accession of 
CathoHc truth that had come directly, as from the 
fountain head, so to speak. Respecting the service 
as a whole, I must say that it did not attract me; 
which in view of my ignorance about it all, was 
not strange. Neither is it unaccountable that cer- 
tain things about it were in a degree repellant; but 
these need not here be named. 

Two years later I was for several months in a 
beautiful small city of the South, a seat of wealth 
and culture, not an emporium of business. It was 
Huntsville, Alabama, as it was forty-five years 
ago. Engaged, still as I always had been, chiefly 
in study, and first and before all else nature study, 
my interest in religion, and in that science by which 
alone religion in any sense is a possibility, namely, 
theology, was far from having diminished, indeed 
was as intense as ever, and I was still unconnected 
with any religious body. During my sojourn in 
Huntsville I attended service somewhere on Sun- 
day mornings; at first, perhaps the Presbyterian, 
or possibly the Episcopalian, both of which were at 
the time entirely new to me. There were Baptist 
churches there, beyond doubt, but I never once 
thought of entering them. I had outgrown that. 
To a large Methodist church I was attracted a 
second time for the sake of hearing again an able 
preacher, somewhat dramatically eloquent. To the 
Presbyterian I went a third time; for the minister 



222 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

was at once cultured and forceful without being 
either dramatic or loud; and there was a phase or 
two of the ceremonial that was new to me. Cere- 
monial is everywhere in religion. The deeper feel- 
ings of the soul expresses themselves in no way 
so perfectly and appropriately as by certain atti- 
tudes or postures of the body, which is the soul's 
seat and residence. Ceremony is therefore essen- 
tial in social life, and to religion it is indispensable. 
Words cannot begin to express shades of feeling 
that come out perfectly and tellingly by a gesture 
of the hand or a slight change in bodily posture. 
Not one religious sect that ever professed to abjure 
all ceremony in worship, will be found without its 
own religious ceremonial of some sort. 

We students of nature's myriad forms of life in- 
evitably become systematizers. The kinds of plants 
and of animals are each so excessively numerous 
that, in order that we may view the whole compre- 
hensively, we must first classify; separate between 
like and unlike and place like things by themselves, 
then view in groups the like, and yet again com- 
pare the like with the unlike. Up to this year of 
my life some religious notes of which I am now 
recording, w^hile but a novice in theology and 
belonging to no church, I was already proficient 
in naturalistic systematizing. It was not much 
later than this, and after I had witnessed a few 
more Catholic Church morning services, that I saw 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 223 

how easily the seven or eight denominational Sun- 
day services that I knew of, fall into perfectly dis- 
tinct groups. 

In the one group there is everywhere agreement 
in this, that the chief occupation of the hour is 
preaching and listening. The very structure and 
appointments of the place tell this. One need not 
wait for the coming of preacher and congregation 
to learn this. The pulpit for the man, and the 
Bible for him to expound, are in the central place. 
The altar, symbol of Divine worship, is not even 
erected at one side or somewhere in a corner. It 
is absent. 

In the other group the pulpit — often wanting 
in the smaller churches — holds a subsidiary place 
at one side, and the altar, symbol of the Divine 
Presence and of worship, is absolutely central; the 
one conspicuous object. The first glance at such 
an interior attests worship to be the principal oc- 
cupation of those who may be gathered here on a 
Holy Day. From an interior like this, secular and 
social meetings and entertainments will be rigidly 
excluded; for the place has been consecrated to 
God and His worship. The place will recall to him 
who enters no memories of occurrences amusing or 
trivial, and only prayer and holy thought will be 
suggested. How as if moved by the very spirit 
of the place does each worshipper on entering there 
kneel and begin silently to pray; and the minis- 



224 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

trant himself, though invested with the insignia of 
office, at first does Hkewise. KneeHng before the 
altar, he, as they have done, worships God. 

In the churches where worship is reduced to the 
minimum and preaching is supreme, how anoma- 
lous would be the sight of a man or woman here 
and there kneeling long in unvoiced prayer before 
the minister's arrival. Such would not only make 
themselves conspicuous and singular in that en- 
vironment. There might be grave wondering and 
questioning, whether they were not turning Epis- 
copalians, and thus entering on the Road to Rome. 

Now this classifying of churches by certain ex- 
ternals of public religion, though but tentative and 
incomplete, is none the less perfectly valid as far 
as it goes. For if we should go on, and take up 
the substance of religious belief as held by the two 
classes of churches, we should find the distinctions 
in this respect quite as pronounced. Everywhere 
under the sun, in religion as in the material uni- 
verse, marked differences in outward form betoken 
corresponding differences in the inner spirit or 
vital part. And this classifying of religions ac- 
cording to externals is not mine, though I think 
I first saw the outlines of the grouping originally, 
and untaught. The grouping has been recognized, 
and received as valid by ultra-Protestants all 
through the centuries of Protestant history, as I 
suspect. Thousands of intelligent and observant 
men of various shades of Protestant belief or nearly 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 225 

agnostic unbelief have said : " I do not see the real 
difference between Episcopalians and Catholics," 
and what thousands of church buildings there are 
in England, in Scandinavia, in Germany for High 
Church Protestant worship, which members of the 
other school of Protestantism could not by one 
mark or sign distinguish from Catholic churches, 
viewing them from within. 

At the time and place of my first beginning to 
institute such comparison between the public wor- 
ship of the Episcopal Church, as I saw it in Hunts- 
ville, and that which had in the main been familiar 
to me all my life, the Catholic congregation of 
the town was without a pastor and there were no 
services. Just then, when under other conditions 
I should have alternated for a time, no doubt, be- 
tween the services of the Episcopal and Catholic 
churches, I received a powerful impression in favor 
of the Catholic. An intelligent Catholic, a soldier 
with whom I had formed an acquaintance, was 
so interested in my religious inclinations and ques- 
tioning that he tried to explain some things and to 
remove certain wrong impressions, and, after a 
time offered to arrange that I should meet socially 
a certain Catholic clerical acquaintance of his then 
an army chaplain; I agreed, though not with any 
particularly anxious desire, or eagerness of expec- 
tation. No convert to the Catholic faith that ever 
was can have avoided more carefully than I the ap- 
plication of mere personal influence and persuasive- 



226 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ness ; this possibly because of my being of a sympa- 
thetic nature, and thereby more susceptible to being 
misled by such influences. The meeting with the 
first Catholic priest, but one, whom I had ever 
seen, and the first with whom I had spoken, was 
a satisfactory meeting. I herewith met a quiet, 
dignified, altogether unobtrusive gentleman, and 
priest. We entered into conversation and other 
things were, I think, more talked about than re- 
ligion. It was quite the kind of an interview that 
was at that moment desirable; for just then I was 
becoming a little acquainted with the Episcopal 
Church service and was very much drawn in that 
direction. I was also examining the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer and discovering it to be essentially the 
counterpart, in my own language, of that Nor- 
wegian State Church prayer book, with its cal- 
endar of Christian Holy days, which had elicited 
my admiration a few years earlier, and besides this 
I was reading other matter appertaining to the 
Episcopal Church with much interest. 

If from the pleasant evening with the chaplain. 
Father Tow^ne, I had gained no new information 
about the Catholic religion, it was for the reason 
that I had not asked it. Possibly he may have 
inquired of me if I would like to read a certain 
Catholic book. I do not remember as to that. 
The book came, perhaps through the hands of my 
soldier friend. I read it carefully, found it most 
interesting and instructive, and returned it. I have 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 227 

never seen the book from that day some forty-five 
years past, but I can almost trust the memory that 
seems to record its author's name as the Rev. 
Francis Xavier Weninger. Its title was ''Protes- 
tantism, and Infidelity f' Father Weninger's book, 
with its blunt uncompromising title, was the book 
I needed at the time it came to me. More than 
that; something less than a score of different vol- 
umes of Catholic argument that I have read be- 
tween that day and this have left in no instance so 
deep an impression on my mind in favor of the 
Catholic religion as did that; and I am persuaded 
that such result was not due to its having been the 
first book of Catholic controversy that I had read. 

The title in itself declares the argument, I should 
say quite unmistakably. He who denies so much 
as one article of the Catholic faith has started on 
a course, the end of which is total disbelief; not 
that this individual will necessarily reach that ex- 
treme ; but that is logically the ending of the course, 
and others more logical will arrive at it. 

I think it was in the year 1883, that in Germany 
they celebrated the four-hundredth anniversary of 
Martin Luther's birth; and even Protestant papers 
took note of the fact that the altogether conspic- 
uous promoters of the celebration, and the most 
zealous and vociferous participants therein were the 
infidels and atheists. But Martin Luther did not 
in his day abjure very many of the doctrines of the 
Roman Church. His creed, if compared with those 



228 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

of a score or two of nineteenth-century-born de- 
nominations would seem almost Roman Catholic. 

However, it was not quite this aspect of the 
case which appealed to me at that early day when 
I read the book, but a somewhat different one; 
that under which all the long line of religious bodies 
dissentient from Rome appear as differing from 
the old faith only in that which they deny, even 
differing from one another only by the different 
lengths to which they severally go in their nega- 
tion of Catholic belief; some few of them holding 
to almost everything except the universal authority 
of the Supreme Pontiff, another group denying the 
Real Presence, another repudiating Confirmation, 
others repudiating the Sacrament altogether, until 
you come to such as doubt the soul's immortality, 
and the very existence of Deity. To me the propo- 
sition was new, and, because of its first appearance 
of perfect truthfulness, was somewhat startling. 
If the Catholic Church be the one only repository, 
of all religious truth, it is entitled to the allegiance, 
unreserved, of all who desire to know religious 
truth and avoid error. But the mind, even not 
well matured, that has been used to scientific re- 
search in the realm of nature, has already learned 
to w^ait, consider carefully, look farther, and then 
again consider, before accepting any new proposi- 
tion as verifiable. 

That tentative grouping of the variations of 
Christianity according to which the line was to be 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 229 

drawn — to be brief without meaning to be un- 
charitable — between what I would have called the 
worshipping denominations and the preaching de- 
nominations — this was to be collated now with a 
classification, which placed the Roman Catholic 
Church all by itself on one side the line, and on the 
other side, along with the half creedless and the ut- 
terly disbelieving, those bodies which both as to 
external form and inmost belief, seemed so inti- 
mately allied to the Catholic Church. 

The two classifications are not incompatible. 
That is easily seen. The determination of two 
groups in each case is by different criteria. They 
result from attempts to classify from different view- 
points. One of them comes from regarding or- 
ganizations ecclesiastical as repositories of revealed 
truth ; the other, from regarding how mUch or how 
little worship of the God of revealed truth appears 
in their most solemn public gatherings. Both the 
groupings may therefore be valid, and if so are 
naturally reconcilable. 

IV 

It was inevitable that a young man of the Mid- 
dle West, ardently devoted to botany, and having 
already by a dozen years' study of it in the val- 
ley of the Mississippi, partly conquered that region, 
should aspire to some new and different field. In 
1870 the Rocky Mountains were beginning to be 
accessible by rail. In April of that year I reached 



2i30 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Denver, then a small town. Taking up my abode 
for the season at a rural domicile a few miles out 
of the city, I was within reach of the lower moun- 
tains and near enough to Denver to walk in either 
direction. On Sunday mornings I walked into 
town to attend Church. One of the purposes I had 
in view for going so many hundreds of miles from 
home and old friends to live among utter strangers, 
was in order that I might make choice between the 
Catholic Church and the Episcopal. I knew that 
to join either one would be a disappointment and 
grief to those to whom I was most indebted; and 
by reason of the great distance I had placed be- 
tween them and myself I felt that I could act freely, 
and take time to prepare my family for news of 
whatever I might ultimately decide to do. 

After the passing of nearly forty years I do 
not recall to a certainty which of the two churches 
I sought out on that first Sunday morning; but 
I think it must have been the Catholic, at that 
time a small unfinished building and the cathedral 
of good Bishop Machebeuf. I have few very defi- 
nite recollections of this, my second attendance on 
a Catholic Mass; and those are recollections of 
such impressions as were, if not unfavorable, at 
least not favorable. How, in reason, should I have 
expected to be favorably impressed by a service of 
the meaning of which I knew nothing beyond this, 
that it was a strange peoples' worshipping of God, 
the ritual being in a language which probably none 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 23 1 

but the ministrants themselves understood; the 
progress of the service from stage to stage being 
indicated by sign and ceremony understood by the 
body of worshippers, but which was unintelligible 
to me. Though a believer in the Real Presence, 
compelled to that belief by the Master's own un- 
mistakable language as recorded in the Gospels, I 
was' still ignorant of the very fundamentals of 
Catholic public worship, and it was not to be ex- 
pected that I should have any comprehension of its 
ceremonial. Here also, and for the first time in 
my life, I found myself in the midst of a cosmo- 
politan congregation. The worshippers, it was 
plain, were French, Italian, Spanish, German and 
Irish, almost exclusively. To what one church do 
people of all nations resort for worship on a Holy 
day but to the Roman Catholic? Could not that 
vindicate to itself the title of the Universal Church 
of God? This question, which I later found un- 
answerable, had not yet arisen in my mind. We 
mortals are not all intellect. The sensibilities as- 
sert their right — whether it belongs to them or 
not — to a part in the ruling of our life. 

I attended St. John's Episcopal Church often on 
Sunday mornings, and began the use, and the care- 
ful study, of the Book of Common Prayer; felt 
anew the beauty and sweetness of that cycle of 
feasts and fasts that make the Christian Year > and 
at the same time teach the story of the whole life 

of Christ; saw in this, and almost everything else, 
16 



232 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

that this book and these services were the English 
counterpart of the Scandinavian High Church serv- 
ice book which had so pleased and impressed me 
in the Norwegian language ten years or so before, 
and which had been the first prayer book I had 
either seen or heard of. 

At the end of some six months of residence near 
Denver, without having made the acquaintance of 
any clergyman or layman of any denomination, but 
after much Prayer Book and some further Biblical 
study, my decision was made. I called on Bishop 
Randall to ask that he admit me by Confirmation to 
the communion of the Episcopal Church. I had 
been baptized two or three years before. The 
bishop, after some reserved and courteous inquiries 
into my case, cordially appointed a day and hour 
for further converse on the matter. That day came, 
and at the end of a not very prolonged interview, a 
time was set for my Confirmation, which took place 
a few weeks later. Almost immediately thereafter, 
certainly at the next call I paid the Bishop, he pro- 
posed that I become a candidate for Holy Orders. 
He had then somewhat recently opened an academy, 
and in connection with that a theological school, in 
which latter he had a few candidates. In Septem- 
ber of the year 1871 Bishop Randall admitted 
me to Deacon's Orders. In January, 1873, he 
ordained me to the ministry of the Episcopal 
Church. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 233 



The more than twelve years of ministry in the 
Episcopal Church form an epoch of course well 
marked, but of which no particular account can 
be given here. But at the very outset, after having 
now given more than two years to a systematic 
study of Christian theology, in the course of which 
I had learned very many things, there had been 
no revolutionization of the general views I had 
reached while still hardly past boyhood. The old 
classification of organized bodies professedly Chris- 
tian was as far as possible from having been in- 
validated. It was seen to rest on other and more es- 
sential differences between the two groups than I had 
before apprehended. What I had for convenience 
thought of as the group of worshipping organiza- 
tions were found to assert a claim to being in the 
Apostolic Succession; that is, to regard themselves 
as being historically continuous with the Apostolic 
Church, and essentially at one with it. To have 
had bishops consecrated in unbroken succession 
from the apostles was even an essential; and in 
such wise as to make of the denominations which 
had classed themselves as " evangelical," merely 
human and voluntary associations, the ministers of 
whom, never having been ordained episcopally, that 
is, by a successor of the apostles, have not been 
ordained at all, and are only laymen. So firmly 
and so consistently was the Episcopal Church, like 



234 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

the Roman Catholic, found to stand by this doc- 
trine as fundamental, that were a Methodist bishop 
or two, and any number of Presbyterian or Baptist 
ministers to apply for admission to the ministry of 
the Episcopal Church, they must at the very first 
concede that they had never been ordained; and 
beyond that must consent to remain for the first 
year of their communion with that Church, as 
humble lay members. 

Another essential characteristic of this wing of 
the army of Christendom seems to be its use of 
a system of religious ordinances called Sacraments 
as absolutely necessary to the soul's health, and 
its growth in holiness; each Sacrament conveying 
its own special grace and virtue not to be had by 
other means. The Chri'stian bodies ranged on the 
other side of the line have in general scarcely any 
idea of such channels of Divine grace as Sacra- 
ments. Almost their only recognized means of 
grace and salvation are simple faith and prayer. 
This difference between the two groups of Chris- 
tian bodies can hardly be made clear without taking 
up one example. Let it be Holy Baptism. With 
the Catholic group this initial rite is believed to 
regenerate the soul that receives it ; procures to that 
soul remission of all its sins, gains for it the first 
accession of supernatural life, if one may so speak. 
It is the Sacrament, the reception of which is in- 
dispensable to obtaining the grace of any other 
of the seven sacraments. Now for the highest ap- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 235 

preciation of this Sacrament among any '' Evan- 
gelical " bodies, one might naturally enough look 
to the body that distinguishes itself by the very 
name Baptist. That sounds as if it must belong 
to a people who make very much of Holy Baptism ; 
but the very reverse is true. 

That the Episcopal Church, judged by its creed 
and official standards was definitely a sacramen- 
tarian, and therefore a true and apostolic church, 
was plain enough. It was also commonly acknowl- 
edged, at least by many clergymen of learning and 
influence, that under adverse conditions this Church 
had in practice declined greatly from apostolic and 
Catholic usage at certain points, and had become 
too protestantized in times comparatively recent. 
Chiefly by means of what was known as the Cath- 
olic party in the Church, its restoration to apos- 
|;olic faith and practice was in progress. This was 
something like the situation as it appeared to me 
when, more than thirty-five years since I was ad- 
mitted to its ministry. 

In the missionary stations, to w;hich I was first 
appointed, unexpected successes attended my min- 
istrations. Before I was anticipating such results 
there were postulants for membership in the Epis- 
copal Church from persons hitherto of Baptist, or 
Methodist, or Presbyterian antecedents and affilia- 
tion. Also there were those who before scarcely 
acquainted with this Church, became regular at- 
tendants and ready supporters of it, of whom it 



236 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

was reasonable to hope that eventually they would 
become actual converts. 

In 1874 I received altogether unexpectedly a call 
to the rectorship of a parish in far away California. 
Earlier in the year I had declined dear Bishop Ran- 
dall's bidding to become his^ curate in the Denver 
pro-cathedral. I could not forego the fascination 
of the botanical fields that lay all around me at 
the remote and small mission stations. I accepted 
the California rectorship and removed thither. It 
was an old parish, well established, and the wave 
of Catholic restoration had hardly yet reached the 
shores of the Pacific. The manner of conducting 
divine service in this church had been always of the 
Low Church type. 

After some months I announced that on all future 
Sundays there would be a celebration of Holy Com- 
munion at half past seven in the morning. Com- 
mon as this early service was even then in the cities 
and towns of the East, it was sure to have the ap- 
pearance of a startling and dangerous innovation 
in an old and rather provincial Californian parish. 
The day after this announcement had been made 
good Mrs. R , of Belfast, one of my parish- 
ioners, on chancing to meet me, was in hardly a 
placid mood. She protested that w^hen she became 
ready to attend an early mass she would make her 
way to the top of the other hill, pointing in the 
direction of the Catholic Church, whose member- 
ship was probably then more than the aggregate 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 237 

membership of all the other churches in Vallejo. 
Mrs. R was apparently serious about the mat- 
ter, and I think that I did not attempt to expostu- 
late with her, or defend my course. It was there- 
fore with a feeling quite beyond surprise that I 
observed her to have been the first to enter the 
church on the following Sunday morning; and she 
was always one of the few to gather there at that 
service, and frequently a communicant. 

Within little more than a year from the date of 
my coming to this parish, a domestic calamity at 
home called me to the East. It became impossible 
I should return soon, and I resigned the rectorship. 
It proved to have been one of the most memorable 
years of my life; and that in respect to things not 
yet told. 

I must here note a few other experiences in my 
CaHfornia parish ■■ — the town of Vallejo was more 
than half Roman Catholic; many of the most 
prominent citizens were converts to that faith, with 
some of whom I had of necessity become acquainted. 
I had also once called at the clergy house to pay 
my respects to the pastor and his curates. On a 
certain day of the Christian Year I always paid this 
call wherever I might be located. There are those 
who will smile when I name that day. It was the 
feast of the Epiphany. Such a call would of course 
be duly returned by the Catholic pastor; but that 
was about the. utmost extent to which my acquain- 
tance with my Roman brethren went. I have in- 



238 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

timated before that in religion I felt personal in- 
fluence to be undesirable, and had somewhat reso- 
lutely avoided placing myself where I would be 
subject to it. It was some years later, I think, that 
I learned that at this time an occasional Mass was 
being said in St Vincents' Church for my conver- 
sion ; also that not a few lay members of that large 
congregation were offering prayers for that con- 
summation. 

It must have been later, and some time in the 
winter of 1875 ^^^^ I o^^^e again entered St. Vin- 
cent's Church at evening, just to attend Benedic- 
tion of the Blessed Sacrament. It was to me a 
new function, and so sweetly attractive that I went 
a third time. On this occasion I realized that I 
must discontinue it. The drawing was too mani- 
festly irresistible. To frequently expose myself 
to that influence would surely land me in the Roman 
Church. I felt no doubt of it, and w^ent my way. 
A scientific man, long accustomed, curiously enough 
and not always unsuccessfully, to applying scientific 
methods to the solving of theological problems, I 
did not ask myself any questions as to why it was, 
and what it was, about that short ceremony that 
so effected me; nor did I investigate the personal 
psychology of this particular feeling. There was 
no need of that bit of research; for in my inmost 
soul I did not fail to recognize the cause. There 
were several things about all this which I did not 
then know. I was totally unaware, and could never 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 239 

have gtiessed that in this same church and at that 
altar there were sometimes offered the most effica- 
cious prayers known to Christians for my conver- 
sion to the CathoHc Faith. I was entirely un- 
aware, of what I long afterwards heard from the 
subjects themselves, that strong-minded men, not 
believing in the Church at all, or even in the Di- 
vinity of Christ, had found themselves under an 
irresistible ihipulse to kneel at Benediction of the 
Blessed Sacrament, when happening to find them- 
selves within a European Cathedral at such a mo- 
ment. 

VI 

The suspicion that there might be an Eucharistic 
Presence in the Roman Catholic Churches such as 
the spiritually sensitive — if I may venture so 
bold an expression — might feel, was a rather 
powerful one. If this should prove true, the fact 
would be portentous, to say the least, to our Branch 
Church Theory. There could not be one Eucharistic 
Christ in one Branch and another in the Roman. 
However, one must not act precipitously on some- 
what mystical impressions however deep and 
strong; and I continued on my way; not, however, 
without investigating the Branch Theory at one or 
two other points where it had begun to seem vul- 
nerable. 

I had been many tirnes edified and stimulated by 
noting the depth and strength of faith, the con- 
stancy in prayer, and the serene supernatural com- 



240 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

posure of a few Catholic friends of mine in vari- 
ous, even the lower, walks of life; conditions of 
spiritual advancement which they themselves had 
no idea they were disclosing when conversing with 
me about religion. Here again was a problem. If 
I myself had been in any deep distress of mind 
and in need of some support to my own faith and 
hope, it would have been to these Roman Catholic 
friends that I would have gone. 

As for myself, I could note apparently no prog- 
ress in the interior life, as the years came and 
went; and this was most unsatisfactory and disap- 
pointing, and now and then I proposed to myself 
the bold question whether I should not be almost 
sure to make more progress in the interior life as 
a member of the Roman Catholic Church. 

These various misgivings and suspicions all con- 
verged and met — resolved themselves into the one 
grave question: Is this Anglican Communion 
really a branch of the Catholic Church ? Its stand- 
ards of doctrine are Catholic. The language of its 
liturgy and of its ordinal is in substance the same 
as that of the Roman liturgy and the Roman pon- 
tifical. * Its priests are ordained in the same terms, 
purporting to convey the same commission. Its 
Eucharist is consecrated in the same words of 
Christ, and its communicants "receive on their knees 
what is delivered to them as the Body of Christ. 
But what of all this if it should be proved that its 
Bishops are not validly consecrated? 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 241 

What if in those terribly revolutionary times of 
the sixteenth century, when in England few knew 
what they believed, and priest and prelate alike 
seemed not to care what they did, so long as they 
obeyed the royal mandate in matters ecclesias- 
tical — what if then the apostolical succession was 
really lost? In this case, to the deeply and sin- 
cerely Catholic minded party in the Anglican 
Church, it is but a solemn, dignified, even stately, 
orderly and imposingly beautiful deceit. 

Such grave doubts and fears as I have given ex- 
pression to above were not yet burdening my mind 
at all when, in the year 1882, I entered upon what 
was destined to be my last rectorship. It was that 
of St. Mark's Church, Berkeley, California; a parish 
already well established, and supposed to be of the 
greater importance as being located close by the 
most considerable institution of learning on the 
Pacific coast, the University of California, Realiz- 
ing the high compliment that the Rt. Rev. Dr. Kip, 
Bishop of California, had paid me in making the 
appointment, I entered upon the work with zeal, 
paying little heed to occasionally recurring doubts. 

I had now been in the Ministry nine years, and 
in each parish and mission that I had served there 
had been those who had suggested, mostly in a 
perfectly friendly if not half jesting way, that I 
was probably on the Road to Rome and might 
easily land there some day. It was this parish, so 
promisingly located for future influence, which be- 



242 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

came the first — as it was the last — which I was 
destined to disrupt. 

With rest from all disturbances, official and pa- 
rochial, with also such academic duties as were no 
more to me than a delightful recreation, I now had 
time to reflect on my own theological and spiritual 
status again. It was early clear to me that the ex- 
periences of a would-be Catholic pastorate in a 
Protestant church — had really silenced no doubts ; 
that these had actually gained both volume and 
momentum. 

Two years passed during which I tried with in- 
different success to teach Catholic doctrine to a 
congregation that was chiefly ultra-Protestant, when 
it became plain that there must be made a new ex- 
periment, both as to church environment and the 
matter of my own spiritual development. In per- 
sonal religion I had seemed to gain no ground for 
years. I must try the Roman Catholic Church as 
at least somewhat hopefully supplying the means 
of saving my soul. 

To one in my circumstances at that time, and 
with a strong sense of obligation to many kind and 
devoted friends who had stood by me in all things 
and who had steadily protested in the face of many 
accusers that I was no Romanizer; that there was 
not the slightest likelihood of my ever becoming a 
Roman Catholic, my position now was a difficult 
one. I would have to place these devoted and self- 
sacrificing friends in a situation where the other 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 243 

side would be sure gleefully to exclaim, " We told 
you so! We were right! We knew it would be 
so ! " that was the greatest trial of my life, as 
now I beheld it in near prospect. 

Late in the autumn of 1884, however, I saw that 
the step must be taken. I entertained the gravest 
doubt of my ever having been ordained a priest; 
consequently that I had ever consecrated the Holy 
Eucharist or administered a sacrament other than 
that of Baptism. On this supposition I had mis- 
led, however unintentionally, and with whatever of 
good faith, quite a multitude of people who, under 
my ministrations, had come into this Church, trust- 
ing that it had all the Sacraments and a Catholic 
priesthood. Resolved to make the change — really 
in these and some other aspects a dreadful one — I 
took counsel with no one. The pastor of the Cath- 
olic Church not far from St. Mark's, an aged 
priest of gentle birth, highly cultured mind, and 
of deepest piety, had long been my friend, for I 
had called on him at every Epiphany, as my custom 
was, and had met him casually here and there. 
But, as I have said, in critical times such as this, 
I have always avoided personal influence, as being 
a motive power undesirable in one of s}7Tnpathetic 
temperament. Hence I did not take counsel from 
even this venerable and most friendly priest. In 
my own mind the die would soon be cast. I had 
set the day, though none knew it. 



244 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

VII 

At the conclusion of the last service on All 
Saints' Day, 1884, I returned to the sacristy, put 
off my vestments, and knew that I had officiated 
for the last time as a clergyman of the Episcopal 
Church. No one else had the remotest idea that 
this was my determined resolution. It was, how- 
ever, one which I knew I should keep inviolate. 
I had most thoroughly tested this Church in its as- 
pect of a Branch of the Apostolic Church of Christ, 
and had come to think that most probably it was 
not such. I had given to this institution a good 
proportion of my time and energies during twelve 
precious years of early manhood; nor did I regret 
having done so. The paths of our lives are strange, 
wonderful, mysterious even, inasmuch that I 
doubt that the philosophic mind, or the devout, or 
even the sincere, indulges in regrets, or should even 
dare to do so if thereto tempted. 

The day following this resolution was most se- 
rene. I think it would have been such had there 
been tempests and earthquakes. 

On the fifth of February, 1885, I was formally 
received into the Church. There was one expe- 
rience which I now looked forward to with eager- 
ness; with all reverence I say experience. I mean 
the reception of Holy Communion. In the parish 
Church near Berkeley, two days later, in the early 
morning, this favor was granted me at the hands 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 245 

of him who was now my pastor. I am sure no 
extraordinary favor had been vouchsafed me, and 
that the experience of that hour was such as be- 
nignly comforts others who, after years in the 
desert places of .the world ecclesiastical, are brought 
to Christ's Church and to His Altars. 

But however that may be, I went forth from that 
humble sanctuary that morning in a state of the 
most perfect certainty that I had never until that 
hour received Holy Communion; that therefore I 
had never celebrated that Eucharist myself in all 
the years of my supposed priesthood, and that I 
had never been other than a layman. To explain 
this conviction is not called for; is not possible. 
But after twenty-three years of life in the com- 
munion of the Roman Catholic Church, there has 
not arisen the shadow of a doubt that it is the one 
Church of God, and the real rightful home of every 
Christian soul. 



THE REV. JOHN HANDLY, 

Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle. 

My ancestors on both sides were pre-Revolu- 
tionary settlers in Kentucky and Tennessee, and 
members of the Presbyterian Church, in which I 
received the ordinary home and Sunday-school re- 
ligious training. At the age of fifteen, " The Story 
of the Resurrection " by Dr. Furness, father of 
the Shakesperian scholar, fell into my hands, and 
strongly tempted me to deny the Divinity of Christ. 
I referred the matter at once to a clergyman — 
not a Presbyterian nor a Unitarian — who enthusi- 
astically espoused the Unitarian argument. Ac- 
cordingly, religion was practically banished from my 
life during the next seven years. Conversation 
with an eminent scientist, who dismissed as irra- 
tional the idea of a personal God, brought home to 
me the desolation of life without faith, and stimu- 
lated afresh the religious instinct. 

My submission to the Catholic Church was noth- 
ing more complicated than pursuit of this instinct 
to its uttermost logical conclusion. I think the 
first hint, that the Church has more to give than 
Protestantism offers, came to me from Zola's '' La 
Faute de VAhhe Moiiret/' I was in no way under 
the influence of Catholic personality or apologetic 

246 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 247 

literature while reaching the decision to become a 
Catholic. I conferred briefly with a priest on two 
difficulties, but even in respect to these, I reached 
and accepted the Catholic position chiefly unaided. 
I regard my conversion as an instance in proof of 
the fact that Catholicity is latent in the average 
American, and awaits only the exercise of spiritual 
candor to be evoked in practice. 



17 



NICHOLAS LOUIS HORNSBY, M.D„ A.M., 

SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI. 

I was born on a plantation in Shelby county, Ken- 
tucky, in the year 1821. My father was of English 
descent, and an Episcopalian. My mother was of 
Irish descent and a Presbyterian. 

My father was very liberal in his religious 
views, and as there was no church of his faith 
near by he usually attended the Presbyterian service 
with my mother. She was a strict observer of the 
tenets of the austere sect to which she belonged. 
One of their principal laws was the keeping the Sab- 
bath day holy. This meant the abstinence from all 
amusements, however innocent, and all diversions 
whatever. The Sabbath routine for us boys was 
going to catechism at nine o'clock in the morning, 
and then remaining for the service which usually 
lasted about two hours. After dinner, which on 
Sunday was a very frugal one, each of us boys had 
to read a page in the family Bible, and the others 
were to remain during its reading. I must have 
had the religious instinct very strongly developed, 
not to have had it crushed by such unnatural re- 
straints upon the common pleasures of childhood. 
It stood the test however, and even since my con- 

248 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 249 

version I have always had a strong inclination to- 
ward the observance of that Protestant law. 

My mother was a very religious woman; and 
was often engaged in discussions with her neigh- 
bors, but as each had a different point of view, these 
controversies terminated, as is generally the case, 
where they began. 

I was sent from home to Center College, Dan- 
ville, Kentucky, when I was about twelve years of 
age. It was a Presbyterian college — the entire 
faculty being of that sect. The president, Dr. Wil- 
liam C. Young, was rather liberal for one of his 
creed. Although the President seemed liberal in 
his views, and not over-zealous in enforcing his 
ideas upon the students, the college was a veritable 
hot-bed of Calvinism. The students had catechism 
classes, Bible classes, prayer meetings, etc., and 
while this religious fervor inspired me with a cer- 
tain degree of sympathy, I felt that I could not keep 
up with the pace and so held aloof. 

At that time in Kentucky the Catholic was as 
unknown as a Buddhist would be now. This may 
be explained by the fact that Kentucky being a 
slave state, the Irish immigrant never or rarely en- 
tered it, and as they were pioneers of Catholicity, 
few churches were built in that state. There was 
a Jesuit college at Bardstown, and a convent of 
Sisters of Charity; a church at Louisville, and one 
at Lexington, and a few others. 



250 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

A Catholic was so rare a sight, that when a Cath- 
olic workman came to my father's house, he was 
pointed out to us children as a curiosity. 

The bitterness of feeling existing between the 
different sects, and by all of them against the Cath- 
olic Church, is incredible to us of the present day. 
One might have thought from the intensity of their 
hatred that instead of representing the Prince of 
Peace, they represented the Prince of War. It was 
an age of controversy. Many of the prominent 
Catholic bishops were drawn into controversies 
with Protestant ministers and statesmen. Arch- 
bishop Hughes of New York, had as his opponent, 
Dr. Robert Breckenridge of Kentucky. Arch- 
bishop Purcell of Cincinnati was opposed by Dr. 
Campbell, founder of the Campbellite or Christian 
sect. Besides these disputations with the bishops 
of the Catholic Church, the members of the various 
denominations were constantly arguing among 
themselves. 

Fuel was added to this un-Christian state of feel- 
ing by the advent of a set of vile characters who 
went about the country giving lectures against the 
Catholic Church. One Maria Monk, styling her- 
self an " escaped nun," told the most shameful and 
scandalous lies about Catholic Sisters. Then there 
were ex-priests saying that they had left the Church 
because of its corrupt practices, when in fact all 
of them had been thrown out of the Church for 
drunkenness and immorality. They told such 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 2$1 

abominable and bare-faced lies, that it is incredible 
that they could attract the attention of decent 
people; but prejudice and rancor was so great that 
nothing said against the Church was too horrible 
for belief. 

Dr. Rice, a Presbyterian minister living at Bards- 
town, and editor of a paper, published some of these 
scandalous statements in regard to the Jesuits. The 
Doctor had such a following in the community that 
the Jesuits felt called upon to vindicate themselves 
and brought suit against him for libel. The suit 
was bitterly contested by the ablest lawyers the 
country could produce, and since the very character 
of the opposing parties was involved, one can easily 
see the importance and interest that was attached to 
this case. The suit dragged along for years as is 
usual in such cases, but finally reaching the Supreme 
Court it was decided in favor of the Jesuit Fathers. 

About this time (1844), occurred a conversion 
of much importance to the Church, and one which 
astonished the religious and literary world : Dr. 
Orestes Brownson, a man of international reputa- 
tion as a profound thinker, became a Catholic, ask- 
ing only for the blessing of the Church, promising 
in return filial loyalty and implicit obedience. 

Such an act from such a man was incomprehen- 
sible to the general public. The Church was at the 
lowest ebb of its existence in this country, and the 
Jesuits, who were the most prominent of the reli- 
gious Orders at this time, saw their name used as 



252 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

a synonym for all that is treacherous and deceitful. 

Soon after his conversion, Dr. Brownson estab- 
lished his Review, and, being a man of exceptional 
ability, and an essayist of the highest order, his 
publication ranked among the leading magazines 
of the country. This was of much benefit to the 
Church; for the Review reached the intellectual 
world, placing Catholic principles before them 
clearly and convincingly. 

In the meantime I had grown to mature man- 
hood, and while practicing my profession took a 
lively interest in both religious and social affairs. 
My friends and associates were all Protestant, in 
fact I had never yet met a representative Catholic 
of either sex. 

I could not but feel that the Protestant cause 
lost instead of gained in dignity by the encourage- 
ment given to ex-priests and ex-nuns, so called. 
They were coarse and vulgar, without a trace of 
that refinement which is so striking a characteristic 
of convent and seminary training, and which can 
never be wholly effaced. In fact the better class of 
the Protestant element perceived this and kept aloof 
from their meetings. 

At this period of my life my mother and I saw 
much of each other. During my college days and 
while studying my profession I had been absent from 
home most of the time. My father had been dead 
for several years and circumstances obliged me to 
remain at home. In conversation with my mother 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 253 

the subject of religion was seldom broached. She 
had told me that in my early infancy she had dedi- 
cated me to God, and she felt assured that in His 
own good time He would call me to His service. 
Besides, according to the teachings of her Presby- 
terian creed, human agency was of little avail : You 
could not come, unless called, and when called would 
be constrained. As for myself, I had felt that I 
was in the true fold since my earliest consciousness. 

About this time I attended a Presbyterian revival 
meeting with my mother. The minister came 
around the church, as is the custom, to talk to those 
interested, and asked me if I felt an interest in my 
soul. I said '' most certainly, above all things," but 
that I did not feel that this was the proper time or 
place to discuss the subject. I added that I would 
be pleased to see him at my home. He was a re- 
fined, cultured gentleman, and we became great 
friends; but the subject of my conversion was 
never again referred to by either of us. 

I felt at this time as one involved in an inex- 
tricable labyrinth of perplexity and doubt. It 
seemed indeed that I was within the fold but I did 
not know the Shepherd and could not recognize His 
voice. I attended the Presbyterian church regu- 
larly, but these services were not at all satisfactory. 
The minister was a learned man, having been a 
professor at Princeton. He had been removed on 
account of some erratic opinions he had held in re- 
gard to the supernatural life. His sermons were 



254 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

merely lectures, neither practical nor devotional. 
What was peculiar in his religion was his antag- 
onism to the Blessed Virgin. It was not the 
antagonism of negation, but active and aggressive. 
To mention her name was to flaunt a red flag 
before him. He would bristle up at once and by 
his whole expression w^ould show his aversion. I 
have observed this same condition of mind in several 
Protestant ministers. 

How to extricate myself from this sea of per- 
plexity I knew not. I had no one to whom I could 
go for advice. The Protestant sects worshiped God 
more after the manner of the old Jewish dispensa- 
tion than of the new. It was a God of fear, not 
of love, whom they adored. They never spoke of 
Calvary in their sermons. Of a conscious compan- 
ionship with God, or of a loving intercourse with 
Him (of which the Saints speak so much), they 
seemed to have no conception. There were no 
doubt many individual exceptions; but the spirit 
of their devotion, like their God, w^as one of fear 
and not of love. 

I wandered blindly in this labyrinth seeking an 
outlet and found none. I chanced on Sweden- 
borg's writings and was much taken with them. 
His views of the spirit world were fascinating. If 
we were compelled to rely upon private judgment 
as our guide, we could not do better than accept 
Swedenborg's teachings. Still there was in me 
that infinite and unsatisfied yearning of the soul for 



SOME ROADS TO ROMF IN AMERICA 255 

a God of love. In this state of mind I felt the great 
danger that there might come a time when I would 
give up the search and lose all hope — that Rich- 
ter's dream in which he had scanned the abyss of 
the Infinite and found no God, might be a reality. 
But to give up the idea of God and to contemplate 
in His stead complete chaos seemed appalling: and 
yet where was the alternative? If there were a 
God, how could He have left us with this yearning 
of the soul unsatisfied, in this path with seemingly 
no outlet, leading to many paths, beyond that No- 
where ? 

At this time I decided to settle in St. Louis. 
There I came in contact with an altogether new 
atmosphere. The best society of the place was 
French and Catholic. The wealth and the culture 
of the city was all to be found among the Catholics. 
Within this circle I formed the acquaintance of a 
family from Guadaloupe, that of M. de L — . 

This family, cultivated and refined in every re- 
spect was nevertheless Catholic. How was it possi- 
ble? How could a religion, represented by its ene- 
mies as only suitable for the low and depraved be ac- 
ceptable to people so intelligent as they were ? It was 
an astounding revelation. I was much attracted by 
these people, and in course of time became quite in- 
timate with them. The Catholic religion at length 
became a subject of interest to me and I was 
induced to examine the basis of the Catholic faith. 
I read Milner's '" End of Controversy," and Moeh- 



256 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ler's ''Symbolism/' this latter I found very satis- 
factory. Moehler admits that each of the Protes- 
tants sects had some truth, otherwise they could not 
have existed: but truth only in fragments. They 
were segments of a circle of which the Catholic 
Church was the whole, and contained all truth. I 
felt the light gradually breaking through this cloud 
of doubt. 

Instead of reading volume after volume on the 
subject, I resolved to compare Catholic claims with 
the teachings of the Gospel, and if they stood the 
test the Catholic was the only true church. 

I said to myself Christ who is the truth itself 
would not teach one thing in His Gospel and an- 
other through His Church. The difference between 
the teachings of the Church and Protestantism is 
very marked, so it would not be difficult to find who 
has the best claim to Gospel support. There were, 
I grasped, four dogmas of the Church in which it 
differs altogether from Protestantism: 

The Papacy, 

Confession, 

The Real Presence, 

Authority. 

If these are taught by the Gospels then there 
could certainly be no doubt in my mind as to the 
validity of the claims of the Catholic Church. 

I found in St. Matthew, chapter xvi, 18, 19, that 
Christ in speaking to Simon named him Peter, a 
rock, and said, "' Upon this rock I will build my 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 257 

Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." 

Here we have both the estabhshment of the 
Papacy and the perpetuity of the Church. 

In the XX chapter, verses 22, 23 of St. John's 
Gospel, I found that Christ in giving His com- 
mission to His Apostles, breathed on them and 
said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever 
sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and 
whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." 
This establishes the confessional without a doubt. 

The Real Presence is demonstrated by chapter 
vi of St. John's Gospel in which Christ said, "' Ex- 
cept ye eat the Uesh of the Son of man, and drink 
His Blood, ye have no life in yon. Whoso eateth 
My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life, 
and I will raise him np at the last day." 

I found that all these teachings w^ere fully sus- 
tained by the Gospel and that no honest mind could 
hesitate to accept them. I conferred with Father 
Damen, the noted Jesuit missioner, who received 
me into the Church in the fall of 1855. I have 
ever felt grateful to that saintly old man for his 
kindness to me at that time. 

Strangely enough when I told my mother of my 
decision, she offered no objection, much to my sur- 
prise. 

I have often thought that the born Catholic does 
not appreciate the great blessings he has inherited. 
The convert who has only known them after ma- 



258 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ture manhood, measures their value to the fullest 
extent. 

The convert realizes this when he leaves the con- 
fessional, with the words "' Ego te absolve '' ring- 
ing in his ears. He realizes this when he sees the 
gray-haired sinner rising from his knees, regener- 
ated by the waters of baptism. He realizes it when 
he sees the abandoned criminal standing on the 
scaffold attended by his confessor with crucifix in 
hand. He realizes it when he sees the wife smil- 
ing through her tears upon her dying husband who 
is receiving a new life through the ministry of the 
Church. He realizes it when he sees the grief- 
stricken mourner kneeling before the altar praying 
for those she has loved and lost. He realizes it 
again when he sees the sufferer from a hopeless dis- 
ease, awaiting death with the crucifix in his hand, 
with peaceful resignation in the assured hope of an 
eternity of happiness with God his Father. 

These are some of the blessings which inspire 
the convert so forcibly, in the Church of his adop- 
tion, and it is of these blessings that Protestantism 
has attempted to rob us while claiming to have re- 
formed the Church. And what has it given in their 
place? Nothing, absolutely nothing. It is a mere 
negation and as such must necessarily die. Even 
now it is passing away and we are offered in its 
place the worship of humanity under a system of 
Philanthropy, but this will never satisfy the sojI. 
It yearns for a God who can console it in its suffer- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 259 

ings, and give assurance to its hope of an eternal 
life beyond the grave. 

Since my conversion, I have felt perennially well- 
ing in my heart, a feeling of gratitude ever seeking 
expression in the words Deo Gratias (Thanks be to 
God), and I feel that it is eminently proper that I 
should close this narrative with these same words 
Deo Gratias. 



THE REV. DANIEL E. HUDSON, LL.D. 

NOTRE DAME, INDIANA. 

Priest of the Congregation of the Holy Cross; Editor of 
the " Ave Maria." 

My Dear Miss Curtis : 

My " Road to Rome " was a very short one, not 
worth describing. I was baptized surreptitiously, 
though it had been agreed that I should be brought 
up a Methodist, like my father. When old enough 
to attend church, he took me with him one Sunday 
to the little meeting-house in the town where we 
lived, but I didn't even cross the threshold. The 
doleful tolling of the bells frightened me, and I 
then and there, at the age of about four years, ab- 
jured Protestantism! 

A girl who worked for us solemnly declared that 
the devil had undoubtedly frightened the poor child, 
and I was much impressed by this view of the matter. 
My father never again spoke of taking me to 
church with him, and so — I became a convert ! I 
remember the incident vividly, and still have a hor- 
ror of Protestant church bells; they never seem to 
ring out, but to toll solemnly, ruefully. 

Some relatives of mine — distant relatives, I 
trust — were among the most intense anti-Catholics 
of former days. One of them, I have heard, was 

260 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 26 1 

responsible for the burning of a church in Phila- 
delphia ; another, known as the " Angel Gabriel," 
by his fanatical speeches in Maine during the 
year 1854, caused the outrage on Father Bapst, who 
was tarred and feathered, and ridden on a rail one 
night by a miscreant mob at Ellsworth in the same 
State. That, I suppose, was why this saintly priest 
always treated me with especial affection. He would 
stop and take my hand (I hope it was always clean) 
whenever we met, and call me his *' little Angel 
Gabriel." What harrowing memories I must have 
revived, all unconsciously, in that venerable *' con- 
fessor for the Faith," as our learned historian, Dr. 
Shea, calls him! Every one loved and revered 
Father Bapst, he was so kind and gracious and 
gentle and good; but I think we young folk loved 
him best, our hearts were so like his. 

I was taught the catechism by Miss Emma Forbes 
Gary. That was long, long ago, however, I yet 
remember — I hope she has forgotten — all the 
trouble she had in getting me to pronounce " Epiph- 
any " and " Transubstantiation " correctly. It 
used to be a wonder to me why Agassiz, with such 
a convert as Miss Gary in his family, did not at 
once became a Gatholic like Newman, Brownson, 
and other great men. 

My vocation to the priesthood was encouraged 
by Longfellow. He once asked me in his kindly 
way what I intended to be when I became a man. 
My prompt answer was, " A Gatholic priest and 



262 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

missionary among the Indians." He smiled, proba- 
bly at the presumptuousness of the idea, but there 
was something impressive in his voice when, look- 
ing down at me, he said : "I am very glad you 
have such an intention." Of course I felt sure of 
being on the right path, since Mr. Longfellow had 
given his approval. Later on I decided that it 
would be better to be a Trappist monk than an 
Indian missionary. 

" That's all," as we used to say at the end of 
our confessions — how short they were ! — to dear 
old Father Strain — another '' Father Felician." 

You see I am not entitled to rank among con- 
verts to the Church, I am not an Indian missionary 
or a Trappist; but I am, with best wishes for the 
success of your book, which should do a world of 
good, 

Very truly yours in Christ, 
Daniel E. Hudson, C.S.C. 



THE REV. EDWARD JOSEPH JEWELL, A.B., 
B.D., 

BAY CITY, MICHIGAN. 

Priest of the Diocese of Grand Rapids; late Rector of Holy 
Trinity Episcopal Church, Manistee, Michigan. 

The soul in its ignorance, searching for Truth 
lays hold of so many notions that when truth is 
finally attained, it is difficult to sort out from the 
vast heap of ideas, those which have had special 
importance in the process. Having groped its way 
through a labyrinth of darkness, it scarcely could 
be expected to remember clearly the various di- 
rections it took before coming to the light. The 
most, therefore, that such a history would contain, 
would be certain prominent facts which seem to 
stand out clearly, but which, nevertheless, may not 
have been the true causes of the conversion. 

The chief cause is God's grace; the instrumental 
causes no one can possibly determine. Only the 
personal experiences can be set down, incidents 
that appear to have a bearing ; while interpretations 
of them may entirely differ: so that, what appears 
to one to have been a prominent factor in conver- 
sion, to another may seem totally irrelevant, ineffi- 
cient, and altogether inadequate. 

To me the Church seems to be the instrumental 

18 ^63 



264 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

cause of conversion, as it is of salvation, so that 
every point of contact with it is to be regarded as 
of greatest moment. 

To those rare occasions of contact I shall confine 
myself for the most part. To my youthful mind 
the Catholic Church was presented as " a monster 
of so frightful a mien, that to be hated needs but to 
be seen." The alphabet of my bugaboo book was 
Antichrist, Belial, Catholic, Democrat; my three 
R's, Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion. The former 
I got from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress where the 
Pope was represented as a fearful ogre at the mouth 
of his cave, surrounded by heaps of bones of Chris- 
tians; the latter, I got from fiery politicians. 

My first knowledge of Catholics came when a 
dear schoolmate died, when I learned to my great 
surprise that he was a Catholic and that the priest 
would bury him. Fear kept me on the extreme 
edge of the crowd at the cemetery, but even there 
the chanting nearly froze me with terror. Since, 
however, the ground did not open to swallow me 
up, I was sufficiently reassured to be able to accept 
an invitation a few months later to accompany 
another Catholic playmate to his catechism for one 
or two Sundays. There I was so kindly received 
and so much complimented on my knowledge of the 
Scriptures that from that time onward Catholics 
ceased to be such objects of terror, although I still 
looked upon them with suspicion. Of course I felt 
obliged to conceal my feelings from my Protestant 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 265 

friends. I believe that I never even ventured to 
tell my sisters where I had been, knowing what 
terror I had previously caused them by my hardi- 
hood in killing rattlesnakes. They always insisted 
that I was too venturesome. Alas! they probably 
think so now. 

The Schoenherg Cotta Family and a life of Mar- 
tin Luther were the chief sources from which I 
derived my terror of Catholicism, since they repre- 
sented the Catholic Church as alone guilty of re- 
ligious persecution. The Sunday-School library 
was mainly a collection of fictitious conversions from 
Catholicism, full of most absurd misrepresentations 
and caricatures of the doctrines, and charges of fear- 
ful immorality against the clergy and sisters, which 
Protestant school histories seemed to confirm. The 
Protestants published lectures by renegade priests 
and sisters, in pamphlet form, scattering these in- 
famous libels broadcast among the young, regard- 
less of the pernicious effect on their morals. 

The natural result of such exaggeration was a 
reaction in favor of Catholicity so soon as my ac- 
quaintance with Catholics revealed their virtues. It 
tended to destroy my confidence in Protestant au- 
thorities, and to make me desire further information 
regarding the Catholic Church from its own repre- 
sentatives, so that I might be better able to defend 
it which I was always most eager to do. 

I made several ventures in my childhood to re- 
ceive instruction from Catholics but was gently re- 



266 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

fused as soon as it was known that my parents 
were Protestant and had not been asked to give 
their consent. To my timid mind such a request 
seemed utterly hopeless. 

About this time the newspapers published the 
prayers which were found among the effects of the 
Prince Imperial of France, when he was slain by 
the Zulus. These prayers memorized, and uttered 
in times of depression in the solitude of Californian 
hills were a source of great comfort to me, and 
formed my taste for a liturgical worship. Some 
years later, in the High School days in Michigan, 
it was my good fortune to enter an Episcopal church 
and hear a liturgical service which reminded me so 
pleasantly of my slight Catholic experience that I 
was moved to study the Book of Common Prayer 
and seek instruction. So great was my joy in finding 
myself a Catholic, as I supposed, without the stigma 
of the name, that my zeal obtained for me permis- 
sion to study for Orders in that Church. Scarcely 
had my college work begun, before I met a former 
schoolmate whose father had cast him off because 
of his conversion to the Catholic Church. The sac- 
rifices he had had to make, but the joy his faith gave 
him, made so great an impression on me that I be- 
gan to feel there was still something that must be 
considered before I should be certain of my own 
Catholicity. I had found a liturgy, a worship that 
was full of dignity, worthy to be offered to an Om- 
nipotent God. I do not exaggerate when I say 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 267 

that its beauty so entranced me that I would gladly 
have spent the whole day in public worship; but 
this man had found a religion for daily life, a re- 
ligion which supported and sustained him under 
daily suffering, poverty and loneliness. He showed 
me the secret of his endurance — a Rosary ! He 
told me about Our Lady of Sorrows, of the martyrs 
sustained by her intercession. Here was grace in- 
deed in abundance, grace sufficient for a lifetime of 
martyrdom. Had I such grace? 

Sometimes in my long vacations I met priests and 
secretly wished that they would talk to me about 
the real difference between Anglicanism and Ro- 
manism, still I never ventured to ask for informa- 
tion but once, when unusually depressed and anx- 
ious. Again I was given a Rosary with the as- 
surance that I should find the light by persevering 
prayer. I received not a word of instruction, not 
a hint of an invitation to leave my Church for the 
Catholic; only advice to pray for light through the 
Blessed Virgin Mary. But this was given so 
kindly and with such perfect assurance that I would 
find it all that was necessary, that I went away 
in wonder, but sufficiently impressed to follow the 
advice. Unfortunately however, my instruction in 
Catholic doctrines was too slight to make me ap- 
preciate the virtue of prayers to the Saints, hence 
the use of the Rosary was frequently omitted. 

At college, Mr. J , a brilliant student, often 

discussed the " Roman Claims " with me during the 



268 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

long vacation, frequently urging me to go with him 
to Father McManus for instruction. He had not 
the courage to go alone and I could not muster up 
courage to go with him. We had both felt that we 
would be happier in the Roman Church, receive 
more grace, and be more comfortable because of 
the certainty that we were in the real Catholic 
Church; but we had no means of knowing for a 
surety what we would find on the other side. We 
had no friends who had taken the step and thus had 
no knowledge of the kind of reception we would re- 
ceive there. The sacrifices to be made, the un- 
known disappointments awaiting us, and worst of 
all, the suspicions we still harbored against the 
priest — all conspired to hold us back. It was per- 
sistently asked " What becomes of converts to 
Rome? We never hear of them after they go 
over." The impression was fostered that Rome 
was suspicious of converts, kept them in obscurity, 
and prevented their communicating with friends, 
lest their unhappiness and dissatisfaction should be- 
come known. It was most mysterious. One could 
never make that voyage except with some tried 
and sympathetic companion, or some wise and ex- 
perienced leader. Had we been there when Dr. 
James Kent Stone, a former President of our Col- 
lege (Hobart), went over, the step might have been 
easier. All the information we could gather con- 
cerning him confirmed our fears that the sacrifice 
would be too much for us. A few years later Dr. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 269 

P , our College President, informed me that 

he crossed the Atlantic with my old friend Mr. 

J , who was then wearing the Franciscan habit. 

Since I had received no news of his conversion and 
had never heard of him afterward, I was further 
impressed with the queer ways of Rome, aggrieved 
at his desertion, and forced to proceed alone in my 
search for truth. 

Among the students at the seminary, I found 
many advanced Ritualists with whom I stifled 
my yearning for Catholic doctrine by reading books 
of ritualistic practices, and controversial tracts, de- 
signed to show that the Anglican Church was in 
complete accord with the " other " branches of the 
true Church and therefore Catholic. 

The " Five Points of Ritual " seemed then the 
essential elements of true worship which it would 
henceforth be our duty to teach and enforce upon 
the unhappy, unwilling congregations to which we 
should be called. If that much to be desired and 
highly essential " Five Points " should generally 
prevail, we felt quite certain that the church could 
be recognized as Catholic. Unhappily for my san- 
guine hopes, I went to Europe for a year, where I 
had the Catholic Church presented to me in quite 
a different light from what my imagination had 
pictured her to be. In her I soon felt at home 
though still vainly imagining myself a Catholic. 
About this time I became convinced that far more 
was needed than ritual ; the vital influence of Catho- 



270 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

licity upon the lives of her children impressed me. 
I learned of miracles, and the supernatural lives of 
present-day Saints, and I saw the practices and the 
methods of the Church which appealed to me as 
most practical. I made an inward resolve to adopt 
them in my parish; my people at least should be 
Catholics no matter what the rest of the Church 
might be. I reasoned that the Anglican Church 
was or should be, one in doctrine, that our branch, 
if true, was entitled to all the doctrines and practices 
of the Church Universal, and no one had the right 
to prevent me from teaching whatever I was con- 
vinced was truth that the Roman Church taught. 
My only limitation was my ignorance of Catholic 
theology and my policy of " expediency," a common 
Protestant Episcopal affliction. I regarded my 
flock as babes to be " fed with milk " until able to 
bear " strong meat." This policy was a strong fac- 
tor in bringing me into the Church, owing to the 
difficulties I experienced in carrying it out. 

For the second time, this time at the General 
Theological Seminary, the conversion of two stu- 
dent friends to the Catholic Church gave me a feel- 
ing of awe and en\7', the former because the mys- 
tery into which they disappeared seemed too deep 
for me to penetrate, the latter because I felt con- 
vinced that they were receiving more grace than I 
hoped to attain in the Episcopal Church. The se- 
crecy with which their instructions had been carried 
on, their reticence about their plans (for no one 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 27 1 

knew of their intentions till the daily papers an- 
nounced their departure from the Seminary and re- 
ception into the Catholic Church), impressed us 
most unfavorably. The coterie of Ritualists to 
which they and I had belonged, continued a course 
of reading and criticism of Newman's Apologia pro 
vita sua, and of Father Faber's books, with addi- 
tional prejudices against their conclusions. The 
Life and Letters of Father Faber seemed almost 
convincing, but just where we had hoped for a 
clear revelation of his ultimate reasons for giving 
up his former religious belief and accepting the 
Roman faith, it became vague and misty to us. 
The reasons of both men seemed insufficient, and 
did not convince our intellects, beclouded as they 
were with Anglican prejudices. Faber's '' Grozvth 
in Holiness/' however, became my text-book for 
daily meditation, as his life in his English parish 
was my model. 

Three years of struggle in my Httle mission at 
Petoskey convinced me of the impossibility of re- 
alizing my ideal, although my little flock accepted 
most cheerfully the new Anglo-Catholic doctrines. 
I taught, and allowed the introduction of a few 
Catholic practices. The Bishops' Pastorial issued 
at Minneapolis that year, and worse still, their ut- 
terances in that General Convention, so disturbed 
my people that further advance seemed impossible. 
Their pastor wished them to go to confession, their 
bishops opposed the practice. Where was the au- 



2.y2 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

thority in the Church to settle the dispute? This 
was only one of many difficulties. When they ap- 
pealed to me for my authority to teach in opposition 
to my superiors I had no satisfactory answer. In 
Rome I felt there was uniformity and unity, spring- 
ing from Infallibility. 

After notifying my Bishop of my intention to 
enter the Catholic Church I went to a priest for in- 
structions, which loyalty to my own church had 
previously prevented me from seeking. The good 
priest counseled delay until my mind should be more 
fully made up. He had no means of knowing how 
long I had struggled and how fully determined I 
was to make the great sacrifice which the step in- 
volved. His uncertainty and unwillingness to let 
me go on at once, gave me some doubts as to my 
own intentions and also as to my own wisdom and 
good judgment; so that when my Bishop's answer 
came in the shape of a request to consult men of my 
own party before taking a step involving the great 
and eternal interests of myself and my people ; urging 
it on the ground that I had been isolated from my 
friends so long that I had perhaps been led to take 
a morbid view of the situation, which they could 
clear up for me better than he could, I decided to 
wait. 

Resigning my work I entered the Western Theo- 
logical Seminary in Chicago to investigate the claims 
of Papal Infallibility, from the Anglican standpoint ; 
that is, to read the arguments which the ablest An- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 273 

glican writers could bring against the Papal claims, 
and to listen to the strongest reasons why I should 
not enter the Catholic Church. The natural result 
was that I returned to my work in the Episcopal 
Church persuaded that Infallibility nowhere existed 
and that the evils of a house divided against itself 
had to be endured. By great sacrifices I hoped to 
obtain the same results and rewards that my fellow 
laborers, the clergy of the Roman Church obtained. 
The excellent priests whom I had frequently met 
and the pious laymen of their flocks refrained from 
criticism; but, on the other hand by praising my 
work, and by numerous kindly acts they confirmed 
me in the delusion that I was helping along the 
Catholic cause, and was practically one of them- 
selves. Their kindness, so well meant, proved a 
hindrance rather than a help in my search for truth. 
The first shock came when a parishioner reported a 
conversation with a priest in which the Father 
stated very positively his conviction that our Or- 
ders and Sacraments were nil, and all our sacrifices 
in vain, however closely we might imitate Catholics 
in faith and practice. 

The conviction then again gradually took shape 
in my mind that infallibiHty was necessary to the 
existence of the Church and could exist nowhere 
but in Rome. The arguments of Anglicans 
against Papal Infallibility either proved those claims 
or proved too much. One champion after another 
was discredited by the ablest Anglican historians 



274 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

themselves, until my confidence in authorities was 
confined to that very small coterie of men calling 
themselves the '* Anglo-Roman party." 

Three years of study and controversy over the 
tenability of their claims convinced me that be- 
lief in Papal Supremacy necessitated actual, not im- 
agined, submission to the Pope. Certain proposi- 
tions of Cardinal Manning upon this matter, which 
I read in Purcell's Life of Manning, proved un- 
answerable by the parties to whom I referred them. 
All my advisers thereupon, both Anglican and 
Catholic, agreed that I should go into retreat until 
it should become clear to me what God was calling 
me to do. 

The year before I reached this conclusion I had 
resigned parish work to try my vocation in an 
Anglican Religious Order. For more than a year 
I had wished to enter the Order hoping thereby to 
quiet my unrest which I felt might be caused by 
resisting a call to a religious life. My difficulty in 
providing for my people a pastor who held my 
Anglo-Roman views and who would continue my 
teaching and ritual, was at length overcome. I 
found a minister (now a Catholic), who wished a 
change and who also believed in the Papal Su- 
premacy. We traded parishes for a month, both 
resigning at the same time, he accepting the one I 
resigned. I declined a most pressing invitation 
to continue parish work in New Hampshire so that 
I might devote myself entirely to the work of the 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 275 

Order, whose avowed aim was to bring back to the 
fold of Peter the strayed sheep of the Anglican 
Church. 

Life in the Friary was exceedingly agreeable in 
spite of the heroic penances, poverty, and strenuous 
life we led; for two ministers and a lay brother did 
all the work of cutting wood, cooking, washing, 
gardening, caring for three orphan boys under ten 
years, besides publishing a monthly magazine, say- 
ing daily mass and breviary offices, teaching the 
school, preaching on the highways, and in the little 
church, catechising, and visiting the sick in the 
country for miles around. The incessant activity 
prevented " morbid introspection " to such an extent 
that I had no difficulty in putting away the " temp- 
tation of the devil " which my spiritual director 
called my interior call to make my submission to 
Rome. He asked me during my retreat if I had 
made every sacrifice which God had asked of me. 
I replied " All but one." That one seemed to me 
far greater than any I had yet made; for it was 
actual submission to the Holy Father, which I felt 
God was calling me to make. Nevertheless, in ab- 
solute obedience to my adviser and superior, I put it 
away as a " temptation of the devil." 

My final undoing came when he sent me out to 
supply a vacant parish during Lent. I saw the 
actual state of things in the Church to be very dif- 
ferent from what our imagination had pictured it. 
Hope being father to the thought, we had per- 



2/6 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

suaded ourselves that the tide of the Oxford Move- 
ment was upward, which meant a purging out of the 
Protestant leaven from the Church of England, 
thus fitting her for corporate reunion with Rome 
which was, we were told, the "' terminus ad qiiem " 
of the Movement. Instead of this, I found that 
many parishes in Massachusetts which had formerly 
been Ritualistic were now quite given over to the 
Broad Churchmen, and I heard tale after tale of 
discouraged Ritualists acknowledging defeat all 
along the line. While the '' Movement " was on 
the rise it seemed that the Holy Ghost was surely 
bringing the wandering flock home and blessing our 
sacrifices and labors; and therefore we were bound 
not to give up the ship. Providence would care for 
our souls while we faithfully labored to bring others 
home. I found the ship a wreck, fast going to 
pieces. 

The question of jurisdiction: What right had 
Anglicans to exercise priestly powers, supposing 
they had valid Orders, became an urgent one. The 
Holy Father had declared our Orders invalid, was 
his decision ex-cathedra? If not it might be re- 
versed. But, jurisdiction being derived from him, 
alone, dare I, acknowledging his supremacy, exer- 
cise my Orders? Only in extremis! Were all 
Anglicans to be considered in extremis? My 
spiritual adviser compared the English Church to 
the " man who fell among thieves " who robbed and 
beat her during the period of the Reformation leav- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 2']'] 

ing her " half-dead," therefore all Anglicans were 
"in extremis." Ergo! 

This was the rankest rationalism, individualism, 
and private interpretation of Scripture, history, the 
Fathers and Councils, surpassing the Protestantism 
of all the Protestants of every sect. I lost faith in 
my last authority in the Anglican communion, and 
thereupon decided to go into a retreat at some Cath- 
olic institution. 

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius did for 
me in eight days what the studies of twenty years 
had failed to do. To them I feel that I owe that 
peace and perfect assurance which the Catholic Re- 
ligion alone and infallibly gives to man. As an 
Anglican the study of the Exercises had often pro- 
vided food for meditation and subjects for mission 
preaching, but *' making the Exercises " under the 
direction of the Sons of St. Ignatius was a wonder- 
ful revelation of their power. Before the retreat 
I rashly asserted that I would take no step until 
I was absolutely certain, my mind then being full of 
doubts and fears. When the retreat was over I 
had received the priceless gift of divine faith, with 
the courage to undertake any and all things for 
Him, Who had brought my soul out of darkness 
into His marvelous light. 

In the hope that some timid and wavering soul 
may be encouraged to make the venture, I would 
add that it is not really difficult — the joy of home- 
coming is so great, the welcome so hearty that the 
sacrifices seem nothing in comparison. 



"K" 

MEMBER OF A RELIGIOUS ORDER IN THE UNITED 
STATES 

" I fled Him down the nights and down the days ; 

I fled Him down the arches of the years; 
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways 

Of my own mind ; and in the mist of tears 
I hid from Him, and under running laughter 

Up vistaed hopes I sped, 
And shot, precipitated 

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, 
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. 

But with unhurrying chase, 

And unperturbed pace, 
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, 

They beat . . ." 

It is the story of such a chase, the Footprints of 
the Divine Hunter of souls we are about to follow. 
Those patient Feet trod far afield to find the prey, 
" strange, piteous, futile thing " though it seem in 
all eyes save His, the Divine Lover of souls. 

The subject of this sketch was born in one of the 
loveliest of the West Indian Islands. Never did 
existence seem more strongly fenced about and 
guarded from any inroad of the supernatural, above 
all, from any Catholic influence. K's father was a 
clergyman of the strict Evangelical school, a man 
of high integrity and of strong convictions, who 

278 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 279 

had given up his commission in the Royal Navy, 
with great hopes of promotion, to become a mis- 
sionary in the West Indies. Her mother was one 
of those rare souls, naturally Catholic, who seem 
to have escaped the taint of Adam's sin, and live 
ideal lives in favor with God and man. 

K's father, never spoke to her about religion. 
He inspired her with awe when, vested in his 
Geneva gown, to which he held tenaciously as a 
protest against Ritualism and Popery, he preached 
long and learned sermons, of which the child un- 
derstood not one word. But out of the pulpit, when 
he read aloud in his wonderfully musical voice the 
masterpieces of English literature; or again, when 
he rode, generally at a gallop, with his yellow hair 
blown back and his grey eyes shining; or again, 
when perched on his shoulder, she followed with her 
eyes the finger that pointed out to her the glories 
of the tropic sky and taught her the names of the 
stars and their places, then and always, he was her 
idolized father. 

Religious observances were strictly held to in 
this household, where eleven olive branches clus- 
tered around the parent stem. When at 9 p. m. 
precisely, the bell sounded, all, servants included, 
were required to file in solemnly to night prayers; 
and in the morning, in addition to the reading of 
a chapter from the Bible, each child had to recite 
a text from the Holy Scripture, and woe to the 
lazy one who repeated the same verse too often! 

19 



28o SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Thus whole chapters of the Old and New Testa- 
ments were learned by heart, and proved a spiritual 
treasure in after life. 

Church going was a rare and exciting adventure. 
None but the privileged few who had been good all 
the week were allowed to take part in it. The 
church was seven miles distant, over mountainous 
roads, and the family wagonette, though of gener- 
ous dimensions, held only a limited number. What 
mingled joy and terror it was to the elect when the 
horses '' gibbed," going up a steep hill, or when the 
black postillion was shot suddenly over the head of 
an obstreperous mule. Then it was so amusing to 
watch the smiling negroes in their clean, bright- 
colored cotton frocks and stiff turbans, carrying 
their shoes in their hands until they came in sight 
of the church, when they were gravely assumed as 
part of the ceremony, to which they added solem- 
nity by their sonorous squeak. 

" The Sacrament " was administered after the 
morning service, during which time the younger 
members of the congregation enjoyed a picnic lunch 
under the mango trees. It was indeed a gala time, 
especially as this was the unique opportunity for 
meeting friends and distant neighbors, whose car- 
riages and riding horses formed a picturesque group 
around the little church. The white congregation 
was small, and the service of the simplest, but it 
was all very delightful and amusing to the little 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 281 

gin, who, it must be admitted, had few ideas of 
piety in connection with the scene. 

When she was seven years old, her godfather 
and godmother each had the inspiration to present 
her with a copy of the Holy Scriptures, so K. 
found herself the proud possessor of three Bibles. 
Two she relinquished to less favoured members of 
the family; the third, a chubby little Bible with a 
soft Russia leather cover and flapping edges, was 
the joy of her heart, and became her " vade mecum." 
How she loved to read for herself the beautiful 
stories, first heard at her mother's knee. How she 
sympathized with Esau, and wept over poor Joseph 
and his wicked brothers, and delighted in the Gos- 
pel narrative! From this time the music of the 
English Bible was woven into the very tissues of 
her mind. To her it was all infallibly true, though 
her interpretations of the sacred text were no doubt 
singular enough. One day her mother found her 
pensive over her favorite Book of " Revelations." 
She was intensely anxious to know what that song- 
was about, that only the Virgins who followed the 
Lamb could sing. Great was her disappointment 
when her mother said she did not know. 

But perhaps the greatest teacher of God to the 
little opening soul at this time was the sea. She 
was born with the murmur of its mighty voice in 
her ears. That sound and the scarlet glare of the 
poinsettia bush outside the nursery window, were 



282 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

the child's first conscious sense-perceptions. As 
soon as she was old enough, she loved to break away 
from the merry band of brothers and sisters, and 
lying as near as she dared to the wall of rock that 
rose in three gigantic steps from the shore, listen 
to the solemn roar of the breakers hundreds of feet 
below. It was indeed a wonderful scene, like one 
in a fairy pantomime or a fancy picture. The white, 
precipitous volcanic rock was all alive with gorgeous 
tropic vegetation. Dozens of " century plants " 
shot up their golden spires of blossom above the 
dense undergrowth of cactus and trumpet vine, palm 
and wild coffee berry. The scent of the night- 
blooming Sirius and of a thousand strange orchids 
and gorgeous flowers was heavy on the air. In 
front, like a vast curtain, hung the wonder of the 
sea, ever changing, yet ever the same, now flecked 
with '' white horses " wrathful and plunging, now 
still as a painted ocean, wnth here and there a sail, 
or the flash of a shark's fin, or the wake of a div- 
ing manatee . . . and sometimes in the late, 
warm evening, when the tropic moon sent a path of 
silver across the field of wonderful blue, the child 
would watch breathlessly, half expecting to see Him 
of whom she had read in her favorite Gospel story, 
come walking down that path towards her. 

It must be owned, however, that these thoughtful 
moments were comparatively rare. The little girl 
had all the faults of her age; she was passionately 
fond of play ; wild, out door games, riding on horse- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 283 

back, climbing the highest trees and the steepest 
rocks were her chief delight. It was an ideal life 
for a child; a good library in which she browsed 
freely under her father's judicious eye sufificed for 
training of the mind. Story-books were few but 
choice, and a taste for good reading came as it were, 
by instinct. But we are anticipating. 

K. was only seven when she had to say good- 
bye to the sea and the lovely, wild country, for a 
little inland town of which her father was appointed 
Rector. It was a real grief; but she soon learned 
to love the beautiful Rectory, with its orange trees 
and huge Spanish chestnuts, and the companionship 
of other children added to the family pleasures. 

This happy time was not to last long. At the 
age of twelve she lost her beloved father, still in 
the prime of life. It was the first shock of a deep 
and lasting sorrow, and K's childish heart was 
secretly wrung by the thought that her father would 
never know how much she loved him, how sorry she 
was for her tempers and naughtiness. It was her 
first realization of death . . . of the effects of 
sin and sorrow, the bitter sense of the irremediable 
in life. Her heart clung in a passion of tenderness 
to her mother in her grief. That mother became 
more than ever the centre and idol of the home. 
The family returned to the old house by the sea, but 
all was changed. The song of the waves was sad- 
der now, and soon a serious accident crippled the 
little girl; for four years she was unable to walk. 



284 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

It was a bitter trial to an ardent and active nature, 
and at the same time one of God's greatest hidden 
mercies. Perforce, the soul was turned inward. 
Prayer became more real, reading her sole occupa- 
tion; she was a devourer of books, and it became 
a problem to keep her supplied ; hence she read much 
that was beyond her years. A beloved elder sister 
had married an Anglican clergyman of the extreme 
High Church party. Lately come from Oxford, he 
was full of the movement that had shaken the 
Church of England to its foundations when New- 
man left it. He still clung to the '' Church of his 
baptism " but unconsciously he was giving a new 
turn to the thoughts of his young sister-in-law. 
High Church Manuels, Hymns Ancient and Mod- 
ern, and a somewhat mutilated copy of the Imitation 
of Christ, became the treasures of the young girl. 
Above all, the reading of Newman's ''Apologia'' 
was a revelation to her. "' Westward Ho " and the 
" Greek Heroes " had been prime favorites of early 
days, and it was a real shock to have the ideal image 
of Charles Kingsley shattered by Newman's well- 
directed blows. 

A saying of her father's had sunk deep into the 
girl's mind. '' The Catholic laity," he would say, 
with calm conviction, '' are kept in a state of such 
profound ignorance by their priests, that they no 
doubt believe the absurdities that are taught them; 
but the priests know better, and they maintain a 
system of fraud and falsity." After reading New- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 285 

man's '' Apologia '' this impression was so far mod- 
ified as to admit that some, at least, among the 
teachers of that mysterious and dreaded Church are 
sincere in their behef and teaching. 

K. was now 15, and there was talk of her mak- 
ing her first communion. To facilitate this, she 
went to visit two maiden aunts, then living near 
the dear old Rectory, which was now held by a 
clergyman of the strictest Evangelical type. He 
was considered to be the very man to win a foolish 
girl from certain erroneous tendencies which had 
been remarked with pain by her anxious relatives, 
so he was requested to instruct this wandering sheep 
as to what she was not going to receive in Com- 
munion. 

It was with a certain tremor that at the hour 
appointed, K saw the neat carriage of the Rec- 
tor drive up, and she was summoned to the inter- 
view. After a long and learned discourse on grace 
and predestination, the reverend gentleman asked: 
" What do you expect to receive in Communion ? " 

" The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ," answered 
K. with great decision. The horror of the Evan- 
gelical minister may be better imagined than de- 
scribed. He wished to know where the child had 
learned this Popish doctrine. " Why, here in the 
Bible; it is quite plain," answered K. Discus- 
sion and warning were in vain; K. held to her 
hereditary right of private judgment and interpreta- 
tion of Scripture, and after a long exhortation, she 



286 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

was told that she might go to the Lord's Supper on 
the following Sunday if she wished to do so on her 
own responsibility! 

Secretly somewhat daunted and shaken, and 
keenly distressed and troubled, K. prayed and 
fasted in preparation for this day for which she had 
longed with such intensity, but which was now 
clouded w^ith doubts and uncertainties. On that 
Sunday morning, still fasting, though the service 
was at eleven, K. waited with trembling hope and 
anxious fear, the moment which was, in her mind, 
to decide whether He was really there or not. 
. . . Kneeling at the railing, she instinctively 
opened her mouth to receive the bread. The clergy- 
man thrust it into her hand with a sort of impa- 
tience, and then almost forced the cup to her lips. 
. . . It was with a feeling of bitter disappoint- 
ment that K. went to her place in the high pew, 
. . . No ! it could not be true. . . It was all 
a dream, a mistake. That could not be He! 

It must be borne in mind that up to that time 
K. had never been in the Church when Com- 
munion was given, as it was the extreme Low 
Church custom to give the Sacrament after the non- 
communicants had left the church, which they did 
in a body after the sermon; neither had she ever 
heard or read of the Catholic usage in receiving 
Holy Communion. 

The Ritualistic brother-in-law did all he could 
to console his neophyte by letter, telling her that the 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 287 

intention of the celebrant was everything, and in- 
viting her to his house, where she could profit of 
his ministry. The invitation was gladly accepted, 
but the sense of void and disillusion remained. 
. . . No, alas! . . . He was not there! 
. . . that was the great grief. 

About this time K had a very singular dream 
which affected her strangely. Without giving it any 
undue importance, it is impossible to omit it alto- 
gether in the story of the soul upon which it left 
a very deep impression. She dreamt, (it was a sort 
of half-waking dream, but intensely vivid) that she 
was in a vast ball-room, full of light and laughter 
and music, she the gayest of the dancers there. All 
at once, above the sound of the band, not louder, but 
different in tone and quite apart and unmingled with 
it, came another strain of music, inexpressibly sweet 
and solemn, such as she had never heard before. 

She sought with her eyes whence it came, and 
there, at the end of the hall, she saw an opening in 
the wall, and beyond a dark alcove or chapel. Some- 
thing irresistible drew her towards it, though it 
seemed that all her companions strove to hold her 
back. She broke from them and ran towards the 
spot whence the music came. . . . All the light 
in the ball-room seemed to vanish suddenly, and she 
was alone in the chapel. A faint light fell on some- 
thing there, something that she had never seen be- 
fore. . . a great life-size Crucifix. It seemed to 
draw her towards it, and as she knelt in wonder and 



288 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

awe, the Head was raised, and the Eyes looked 
deep into her own — one look which she never for- 
got. Then all was dark, and she found herself in a 
path leading she knew not whither. She felt inex- 
pressibly lonely, yet not alone. There was a sense 
of some unseen Presence near her. . . . For 
ages, as it seemed in the dream, she walked on thus 
up the steep and narrow way, weeping, sore, and 
very sad and weary. At last she came to a high 
plateau of rock. Above was the light of stars, a^d 
seven great splendid globes of light that revolved 
slowly and majestically in the heavens. Then on a 
sudden, a blinding light and scorching heat sur- 
rounded her, a Voice called her by a new name, and 
she turned to see at her side Him whom she had be- 
held upon the Cross, looking at her again with love 
and pity. . . This was the dream. I know not 
all it meant. 

Shortly after, the whole family went '' home " to 
England. No tie now bound them to the West In- 
dies, and England had been the long-dreamed-of 
land of promise to K. She little thought how- 
ever, what graces and what sorrows awaited her 
there. 

They settled down in a little Midland town, where 
there was a fine grammar school for the younger 
boys, whose education had been the chief motive 
for the change of country. All in her new sur- 
roundings was delightful to K. She was in ec- 
stasies at seeing snow for the first time, and the 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 289 

beauty of an English Spring was a kind of new 
revelation. Her first vision of a bank of primroses 
in the M. . . vale woods brought her to her knees 
with a keen sense of the Presence of God. 

But a new danger awaited her soul. Minds in 
that large family were developing in widely differ- 
ent directions, and new ideas and impressions poured 
in at every sense. Darwin, Huxley, and Herbert 
Spencer were eagerly read, and faith, with no solid 
foundation to rest on, was soon lost. There came 
a day when the only prayer that rose to agonized 
lips was that of the Agnostic: " O God (if there 
is a God), save my soul (if I have a soul)." 

But one safe-guard remained in the love of the 
mother, whose simple faith and charity to the poor 
and to all, brought blessings upon her unworthy 
child. Then came a black day, when that adored 
mother was stricken with a grievous illness, one 
that could only end in death, after long torture. 
It would be impossible to describe the rage of grief 
and despair that took possession of K.'s soul: 
God was not just, or He cared nothing about His 
poor suffering creatures. Why must the holy, the 
gentle, the loving and so well-beloved, suffer so? 
The thought of losing her was despair — to see her 
suffer without hope of cure or relief was maddening. 

It was in this mood that one day she heard a 
friend say casually : " Why don't you go to Bene- 
diction at the Convent ? It is not five minutes' walk 
and the nuns sing so beautifully ! " K. had often 



290 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

passed the high grey wall of the Benedictine Priory 
with a sort of shudder. What kind of life did those 
poor women lead, shut up in that dismal prison? 
The mere thought of it was dreadful; but in her 
present mood any diversion of mind from the one, 
hopeless sorrow was welcomed. K. never left her 
mother now for more than an hour at a time, but 
the Convent was only at the end of the grounds. 
Information as to the hours of Benediction was 
eagerly given by a little Catholic maid, and one 
memorable evening in May, K. pushed aside the 
little wicket gate that led to the side door of the 
chapel. 

It w^as open and K. found herself in a very 
small sacristy, The sanctuary alone was visible, 
the rest of the chapel was hidden from secular 
eyes by a heavy curtain. The priest vested and 
passed out into the sanctuary, and there was a 
sound of music, an organ, and voices sweet and 
solemn . . . was she dreaming again? Was 
not that the very air she had heard in a dream years 
before? Then she looked towards the altar: 
a great light was streaming from the Taber- 
nacle. . . Who was standing there? . . . 
Did she sleep or wake? 

What had happened? . . . That is the Se- 
cret of the King . . . but when some time af- 
ter, the priest touched her on the shoulder, and said 
it was time to close the door of the chapel, K. rose as 
from a dream. One thing was real, however, she 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA . 291 

had found Him at last. . . He was there in that 
Tabernacle. There was no more room for the shad- 
ow of a doubt; she had seen, not with the eyes of 
flesh, but with a vision far clearer than that of bodily 
sight, Him, whom she had sought for so long, or 
rather. Him whose Footsteps had at last overtaken 
her after a long chase. 

Strange to say, the idea of being actually received 
into the Catholic Church did not at once occur to 
her. . . It sufficed that she had found Him 
. . . that from time to time she could slip away 
from her mother's bedside to the little sanctuary, 
where she was sure to find rest and consolation in 
His dear Presence. 

Meanwhile her mother became daily worse; the 
care of the dear invalid was a privilege jealously 
guarded and yielded to none, night or day. One 
of K's sisters, the wife of an AngHcan clergyman, 
came at this time to share her sorrow. These were 
days of sadness : it was anguish to witness the suf- 
ferings of one so dear, without hope of even alle- 
viating the cruel pain. Unknown to each, the two 
sisters had been travelling along different roads 
to the same goal. Mrs, M. had long felt that the 
Anglican communion did not satisfy the needs of 
her soul. All was unreal to her, and at the touch 
of a great sorrow she found she had nothing to 
lean upon, no faith, no love strong enough to en- 
able her to bear the trial. 

At first K. said nothing of her own state of mind 



292 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

with regard to religion; but one day she said sud- 
denly, " Come with me to Benediction." 

"What is Benediction?" asked Mrs. M. 

" Come and see! " 

If, thought K., she is moved as I was, I shall 
take it as a sign that I must become a Catholic, 
whatever it costs. So they went together, and as 
they left the chapel, her sister said : " K., if there 
is Truth anywhere, it is there." 

" I know it," said K., " for He is there." 

From that time they said little to each other of 
the subject which absorbed their thoughts, but every 
Benediction day found them in the little chapel. At 
last, one day, the Convent servant stopped them as 
they were going in, saying that the nuns had decided 
to admit no one to their chapel, as some visitors had 
abused the privilege, drawing aside the curtain to 
satisfy their curiosity to see cloistered nuns. This 
was a great blow ; where now should they find con- 
solation ? It was not to be borne ; a letter was soon 
dispatched to the Chaplain, whose name was un- 
known to them, imploring his intercession on their 
behalf with the Mother Prioress, since in great sor- 
row, they found their only comfort in kneeling for 
a few moments in that dear sanctuary. A kind and 
cordial response soon arrived, saying that the pro- 
hibition was not for them, and that the little door 
would be left open, so that they might enter when 
they pleased. 

So every day the sisters knelt before a Hidden 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 293 

God, whom, though as yet not fully known, they 
loved. One evening, after Benediction, the priest 
stopped them, and after a few kind words, asked 
them why they, being Anglicans, left their own 
beautiful church to come to this little chapel. - 

" Because," said K. very simply, " He is not 
there, He is here." This was the first of many 
conversations, which finally developed into a regular 
course of instruction. Many Catholic books were 
eagerly devoured; the light was now fully given, 
but to follow it meant to both the sacrifice of all that 
was dearest and sweetest in life. 

It would be impossible to enter into the details 
of what followed. God took to Himself the be- 
loved mother, whose simple faith and love had won 
for her children a greater grace than in His hidden 
decrees He had willed to bestow upon her in this 
life. The two sisters received conditional Baptism 
and made their first Communion in the same dear 
chapel where already such marvelous graces had 
been given them. 

''Quid retrihuam Domino? " This is the impera- 
tive cry of gratitude that springs spontaneously to 
the lips of one who has been specially favoured by 
God. Nothing less than all would suffice in return 
for the supreme gift of faith. K. reached the haven 
of the religious life, after many trials and difficul- 
ties. There we will leave her. " Blessed is the 
country that has no history," and the soul whose 
life is hidden with Christ in God. 



294 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Her sister persevered heroically in the midst of 
extraordinary trials and difficulties, and finally drew 
her husband and children after her into the Church. 
Theirs has been ever since the long martyrdom of 
poverty and friendlessness suffered for the faith. 
'' Elegi abjecfns esse," must be the watchword of 
the Anglican clergyman, who, no longer a young 
man, and with a wife and family dependent upon 
him, finds himself as it were, adrift on the shores 
of a new world, whose inhabitants regard him, some 
with indifference, others with distrust. Truly, as 
a distinguished convert clergyman said of himself, 
with regard to temporal matters, he must live sus- 
pended by the hair of his head, like the prophet 
Habacuc ! 

Before the last parting, the sisters had some great 
consolations together. They were confirmed by 
Cardinal Manning in his private chapel in West- 
minster, and guided and instructed by the great 
sailor-monk. Bishop Ullathorne. They were blessed 
and consoled by the great and saintly Cardinal New- 
man, then in extreme old age, but still marvelously 
attractive by the power that sanctity, sweetness and 
humility gives. They assisted at his Mass in the 
old chapel of St. Philip Neri at the Birmingham 
Oratory, and saw him weep and tremble with love 
and heavenly joy as he held his Lord in his hands. 

In the last, never-to-be-forgotten interview of 
farewell, how eagerly they treasured up every word, 
every sound, of that wonderful voice, the gaze of 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 295 

those clear, childlike blue eyes, that seemed to say 
to God : " for aught else I care not." 

They saw him, Prince of the Church and the 
greatest man in England, giving them his precious 
time as if he had nothing else to do but strengthen 
and support the weak, and then he glided out of 
the room, and returned, carrying two volumes of his 
Anglican sermons, saying with that exquisite cour- 
tesy and urbanity, which are the fine flowers of 
humility : " I hope you will not mind taking these ; 
I wrote them before I was a Catholic, but I don't 
think they will do you any harm! " 

O beloved Father, scholar, sage and saint, pray for 
your spiritual children, to whom you opened the 
way to the City of Peace. 



20 



ADA MARY LIVINGSTON, 

NEW YORK 

Widow of Van Brugh Livingston, Esq., and daughter of the 
late Hon. Samuel Jaudon, United States Minister to Eng- 
land. 

My first grace of conversion came, I think, from 
the prayers of the Three Kings, Caspar, Melchior 
and Balthazer — for I was born on the feast of the 
Epiphany — January 6th., in London, England. 

I was baptized of course, in the Estabhshed 
Church, but it was not until the death of my brother 
next oldest to myself, when I was twelve years old, 
that I had any thought of religion. This sorrow, 
and the teachings of a very pious Protestant govern- 
ess made me completely change my mode of life, 
and I joined the Episcopal Church, was confirmed, 
and became a regular communicant till I was about 
twenty-three years old. At this time my eldest 
sister became engaged to the eldest brother of my 
husband of many years later, and this brought me 
into intimacy with the Catholic branch of the Living- 
ston's. I resolved to show them their errors, and 
to this end I began to read and study their books in 
order to be able to prove how right I was, and how 
wrong they were. I was particularly anxious to 
bring back to Protestantism a cousin by marriage, 
then a recent convert. 

296 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 297 

For many months I pored over my Concordance, 
Bible and Catholic doctrinal works till the blessed 
light dawned upon me, and I knew that God had 
established a Church, and that to it He had promised 
immunity from error. And furthermore I found 
that to this Church He had promised to confide all 
Truth and to abide with it forever. 

This was enough to make me decline further 
communion in the Episcopal Church. Nor, as I 
have frequently known to be the case, did our 
clergyman trouble himself about this, or try to lead 
me back to Episcopalianism. 

My mother's distress wrung from me the promise 
not to read or speak about religion for six 
months, but at the expiration of that time I went 
off to the Catholic church to Mass. Seeing me so 
determined my dear mother thinking to frighten me 
from taking the step said I should be sent away to 
a Protestant clergyman in Baltimore, or shut up 
in our country home for the winter, with only Prot- 
estant servants, and that my dear father's death 
would surely result from my joining the Catholic 
Church — that Church from which his forefathers. 
Huguenots from La Rochelle in France, had fled 
to this country at the Revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes. I persevered, however, and was baptized in 
the Paulist Church, New York, by Father Hewit on 
October 24th, 1863. In November, we, having no 
archbishop in New York since Archbishop Hughes' 
death, I was privately confirmed by Archbishop 



298 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Spalding of Baltimore in his parlor at the old New 
York hotel, a landmark which has long since 
vanished. 

On the 1 8th of December I made my first blessed 
Communion in the chapel of the Sacred Heart on 
West 17th street. It too has passed away in the 
rush and pressure of New York business and 
progress. 

Years went on — society years — when, how- 
ever, I was never quite satisfied with the worldly 
life, sighing for a more secluded one, though from 
my earliest conversion I was a weekly, and often 
more frequent communicant — and then — after a 
time — a daily partaker of the Sacrament, devoting 
all my spare time to the care of the Altar of the 
Paulist church, and making vestments and altar 
linens. 

In November, 1874 I was married to Van Brugh 
Livingston, and again went abroad (I had been on 
a visit to England and France some years previous). 

My husband and I remained three years abroad, 
visiting almost every country of Europe, and of 
course were one winter in Rome where we enjoyed 
exceptional religious privileges. Soon after our re- 
turn to America my dear mother passed away ; then 
my beloved sister, Annie Livingston, my second 
sister Julia Van Rensselaer, and my two brothers 
also died. 

Through all these losses I had the consolation of 
our beloved Faith, the devotion of my saintly hus- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 299 

band, our union of heart and soul, daily strengthened 
and spiritualized by Holy Mass, and the daily Com- 
munion of the most Precious Body and Blood of 
our dear Lord. 

There followed a time of calm after many storms 
until the day came when, after leading each year a 
more and more saintly life of prayer and union with 
God, my beloved husband also passed away to the 
blessed life with God for which he had been so long 
preparing. And now my final hope and prayer is 
that I may continue to live and then die in this ever 
blessed and holy Faith. 

If I have chiefly sketched here the manner and 
mode of my life after, instead of before my conver- 
sion, it is in order that all men may. know the blessing 
it has been to me from the first day until now — 
nearly forty-five years ago. 



HUGH FRASER MACKINTOSH, ESQ., 

TORONTO, CANADA 

My first impressions of the Catholic Church are 
not easy to define, dating back as they do to a very 
early age. But, born and brought up in the Pres- 
byterian sect, I had no opportunity in my youth of 
imbibing correct notions as to what the Church 
really was or in what her children differed from 
other Christians save in that, as I was taught to 
believe, they adored images, put the Blessed Virgin 
before Christ, the Church above the Bible, and, in 
other respects, " had departed from the primitive 
gospel." Further, I was taught, less by oral in- 
struction than through the medium of printed books, 
that where the Catholic Church had exercised power 
it had been as an instrument of oppression, and that 
the " blessed Reformation " had been effected only 
through seas of blood and by " the patient endur- 
ance of its martyrs." One book in particular from 
my father's library I recall as inculcating such 
teachings. Its title was : " Historical Tales for 
Young Protestants," and it painted in lurid colors 
the " fiendish cruelty " of Catholic prelates in deal- 
ing with these " zealous reformers of the faith." 
Of any corresponding persecution on the part of 
the " Reformers " it of course contained not a 

300 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 301 

word, and it was left to future years to reveal to 
me their unrivalled supremacy in this respect. My 
father was not openly opposed to the Catholic 
Church, and I cannot recall a single harsh expres- 
sion from him against Catholics as such. I heard 
more of it in Sunday school than anywhere else and 
can remember, on one occasion at least, an ex-priest 
being brought there to address us. But while my 
father was not in the habit of expressing bitter feel- 
ings against Catholics (or for that matter against 
anyone), that he had the prevailing Protestant idea 
of the Church certain books in his library seemed to 
bear witness. He was, moreover, an ardent Pres- 
byterian, a man of great faith and piety, well versed 
in the Scriptures, and had a firm grasp of the tenets 
of Calvinism which he very earnestly imparted to 
his children. We were well drilled in the theology 
of the " Westminster Confession of Faith " as em- 
bodied in the " Shorter Catechism," and in the 
metrical version of the Psalms as in use in the 
Church of Scotland — so thoroughly indeed that 
the lapse of years has not served to eradicate them 
from my memory. 

There was, however, a coldness and formalism 
about the Presbyterian form of worship that never 
appealed to me either as a child or in more mature 
years. In this I imagine I did not differ materially 
from the generality of youths brought up in similar 
surroundings however they may have changed as 
they grew up. But (and this is the only aspect of 



302 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

it with which I am concerned here) it was not an 
atmosphere conducive to the imbibing of Catholic 
principles, and a less promising starting point for 
a journey to Rome it would be hard to imagine — 
save, perhaps, in this, that the rugged staunchness 
and straightforwardness of the Scottish character 
gave to even so unlovely a thing as Calvinism a 
hatred of shams and hypocrisy which is, I should 
say, more promising at least than the pliancy of 
other and more emotional forms of heresy. 
Whence then, and in what manner, did I imbibe 
those thoughts and ideas which were to pave for 
me the way to the Catholic Church? I will en- 
deavor to sketch them as briefly as possible. 

I was a mere boy when I first saw the interior 
of a Catholic church and the occasion was one long 
to be remembered. A funeral service was in prog- 
ress in the local church and, passing with other 
lads, attracted by the throng, we went in. I can 
recall at this distance of time the vested priests, 
the lights upon the altar, the smoke of the incense 
and the mournful chant of the Dies Irce. The lat- 
ter haunted me for days and while subsequent 
years have made it familiar, its solemn cadences 
on that occasion sound in my ears still. 

It was not for some years that I again found 
myself in a Catholic church. This second occasion 
was a charity sermon by a preacher of some note 
and my elder brother and I were, with some re- 
luctance, permitted to attend. Of the sermon I 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 303 

remember nothing except a remark to the effect 
that almost the entire body of EngHsh literature 
is stained with error as regards the teachings and 
practices of the Church. That remark was not 
lost upon at least one of the auditors; for, later, 
it bred in me a spirit of enquiry. But what im- 
pressed me most was the Benediction of the Blessed 
Sacrament, neither the meaning nor import of which 
I had then the least conception; but which was to 
have such an effect upon me in after years. All 
that I then discerned was its beauty and solemnity, 
so unlike the empty forms to which I was accus- 
tomed. From that time on, for many years, I en- 
tered a Catholic church only at long intervals, but 
never I think save in a spirit of respectful attention 
to what, while not understood, was felt inwardly to 
be something more than an empty ceremony. 

But the turning point in my life came in a man- 
ner entirely unlooked for. That Protestants had 
from time to time found their way into the Church 
of Rome I had of course heard, but the fact made 
no deep impression on my mind, as the notion that 
they were actuated by motives of a more or less 
worldly character was the natural inference derived 
from what I had been taught. Besides, such per- 
sons were for the most part clergymen of the 
Church of England, and, as I had heard my father 
remark, only a paper wall separated Anglicans from 
Catholics in any case. That was the old Covenant- 
ing idea of the Church of England and it never 



304 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

occurred to us to call it in question. But a new 
world opened before me when, in the year 1882, I 
picked up a magazine of the day which had as a 
frontispiece a reproduction of Ouless's celebrated por- 
trait of Cardinal Newman, and as I was examining 
it, a voice at my elbow, speaking of the article ac- 
companying the portrait, asked : " Is it an apology 
for his becoming a Catholic?" I recall quite viv- 
idly the sensation this question produced in me. 
Of Cardinal Newman I, up to that time, knew noth- 
ing whatever; but I was fascinated at once by the 
deep spirituality of the face and the penetrating, 
far-away look as of one whose thoughts pierced 
the veil and centred in a higher sphere. Can this, 
I thought, be the face of a man who could lightly 
or for any unworthy motive make so momentous 
a change? I took the magazine into a quiet corner 
and read the article carefully from beginning to 
end. It treated of matters of which I in those days 
knew little or nothing. The writer was an unbe- 
liever, but his attitude towards the Cardinal was 
one of deep reverence and of frank if restrained 
sympathy with his intellectual point of view. He 
wrote of Newman's early history and of the Evan- 
gelical atmosphere into which he was born; of his 
career at Oxford and the hard battle he there fought 
to place Anglican theology upon a firm intellectual 
basis, and then to vindicate the kinship of the Es- 
tablishment with the Church of the first ages, inde- 
pendent of the modern Roman communion, which 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 305 

claimed alone to represent historical Christianity; 
of his self -acknowledged failure so to do and of his 
humble submission to the all-conquering mother 
who had established in no uncertain terms her claim 
to his spiritual allegiance. Here was an intellectual 
history dominated wholly by spiritual aims : what 
could it all mean? Mr. C. Kegan Paul, the writer 
of the article, had, himself, been a clergyman of 
the establishment whose soul had revolted at the in- 
consistencies of that Erastian organization and had 
drifted into unbelief. The spiritual history of New- 
man appealed to him strongly, however, and his 
attitude in 1882 is thus summed up: " My interest 
is mainly intellectual, not doctrinal . . . but I 
feel that, granting the premises. Dr. Newman's 
church is the only logical outcome of them." His 
difficulty was with the fundamental principles under- 
lying the Christian faith, but these, too, were in 
the course of years to be made plain to him, and 
when that time came I had the happiness of con- 
gratulating him upon his safe entry into that Port 
in which by God's mercy I had then been safely an- 
chored for several years. And it was my privilege a 
few months ago to kneel at the little oratory erected 
by him in the church of the Servite Fathers in Ful- 
ham Road, London, and there to offer a prayer of 
thanksgiving for the Faith and for the repose of the 
soul of Kegan Paul. 

I have dwelt upon this chapter in my experiences 
as it was to usher me into a course of enquiry which 



306 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

had, to me, such momentous results. The Apologia 
Pro Vita Sua was repeatedly referred to in Mr. 
Paul's essay and so great was the interest it aroused 
in me that I lost no time in purchasing the book and 
therein reading Dr. Newman's own account of his 
change of faith. This is not the place to dwell upon 
that epoch-making book which has taken rank among 
the classics. I read it then with all the interest of 
a novice and when I finished it I had ceased to be 
a passive onlooker, and had become an earnest en- 
quirer. I have read the book many times since then 
and always with fresh interest and delight, as I 
have in the course of years read about all that John 
Henry Newman has written, but nothing can ever 
duplicate the eager zeal with which, in the Apologia, 
I entered upon the undiscovered country. 

I take it that I am not called upon here to vin- 
dicate the course or conclusion of my enquiries but 
rather to set down as briefly as possible the reasons 
which induced me to go out from my own people 
and to seek admission into the Catholic Church. 
I suppose no two converts have the same intel- 
lectual history, and God's dealing with the sons of 
men are as varied as they are beneficent. By 
devious paths, through dense forests or over sunny 
plains does the wanderer come home, and if my own 
pilgrimage was devoid of striking incidents its 
recital may nevertheless help some poor wayfarer 
who, with no chart to guide him, has lost his way. 

As I read the history of Scotland, the land of my 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 307 

ancestors, I was conscious of a feeling of wonder 
how a chivalrous and imaginative people like the 
Highland Celts could have fallen under the sway of 
so cheerless and so unlovel}^ a creed as Calvinism. 
A deep mystery lies here, and I am no more able 
to fathom it now than I was then. The Church of 
God has won her w^ay in the world by appealing 
to the higher instincts of humanity, and by the exer- 
cise of pastoral mildness in her ministrations to the 
poor and the downtrodden; but the path of heresy 
has ever been the path of blood. By base arts have 
nations been allured from their allegiance, or by 
lire and sword despoiled of their faith and thus be- 
come the victims of that " deep malady of heart 
and mind," as heresy has been very aptly termed. 
This is indeed the only hypothesis on which Prot- 
estantism can be explained, and while we lament 
the fact of its existence we can with the late Mr. 
Allies wish every form of it nothing worse than 
" self-wrought dissolution through the internal 
operation of the error on which they are founded — 
the generative principle of private judgment." 

Reading, then, in this frame of mind, the ro- 
mances of Sir Walter Scott, Jane Porter and others 
dealing with the heroic ages of Scottish history, it 
was borne in upon me that in breaking with her 
past Scotland had committed national suicide and 
given the He to all that was most inspiring in her 
history. And, in the occasion and methods of that 
break, I was unable to discern anything that re- 



308 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

dounded to her credit as a nation. It was begotten 
in iniquity and nurtured in treachery. The Cath- 
olic party stood for the national life of Scotland, 
while the Reformers played into the hands of Eliza- 
beth and Cecil. So far then as Scotland was con- 
cerned the Reformation was her undoing. With 
Queen Mary, Cardinal Beatoun and those other 
heroic souls upon whose destruction the success of 
the new order depended, I had always had the deep- 
est sympathy, and the more I pondered upon the 
infamous slanders that have been heaped upon them 
the greater became my contempt for their miserable 
traducers, and the more remote any possibility of 
my own permanent identification with the cause 
which the Calvinists represented. On the one hand 
I contrasted the known purity of Mary's early years, 
her courageous adherence to her faith in troublous 
times, her absolute selflessness in her relations with 
her friends and dependents, and, crowning all, her 
heroic death. On the other hand was the seething 
mass of corruption in which her lot was cast in the 
Calvinistic Scotland of the sixteenth century. Was 
ever a helpless and defenceless woman encompassed 
by so cruel, so cunning, so unprincipled a set of 
knaves? There is, apart from Mary's own person- 
ality and the unselfish devotion of her humbler re- 
tainers, scarcely a bright spot to relieve the dark 
background of the picture. And towering over all 
is the grim figure of John Knox, than whom history 
records few more despicable characters. Coward, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 309 

bully, traitor, apostate — applauding the murder of 
the patriot Cardinal and, without doubt privy to 
the deed; browbeating a gentle and refined woman 
whom the trend of events had placed at his mercy, 
and fleeing to Geneva to save his own precious skin 
when danger threatened in his native country — 
this is the man whom unthinking Presbyterians de- 
light to honor. It has not been my good fortune 
to meet with one who could satisfactorily justify 
this man's dominance in the Scottish history of the 
period, far less his elevation to a species of patron- 
saintship, except that a hero a cause must have, and 
in the stress of poverty one is sometimes manu- 
factured out of very questionable material. In the 
selection of John Knox, I concluded, the very worst 
elements in the great upheaval found their most 
signal triumph. 

Whatever, then, might be the merits of Calvinism 
its genesis in Scotland had not the stamp of Heaven 
upon it and its founders nothing in common with 
the great Fathers of the Christian faith. - Plunder 
was their object and calumny their stock in trade. 
Perish the thought that the pure and upright lives 
of my parents, and of others whom I knew, could 
have anything in common with these fanatical 
despoilers. Rather were they like sheep robbed of 
their shepherd yet hearkening to a voice that 
through the darkness of surrounding heresy led 
them on to the haven of rest beyond. 

In the midst of such thoughts as these the subject 



310 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

of Church authority was brought before me, and I 
came gradually to feel that between the Holy Scrip- 
tures, even in the mutilated King James version, 
and the doctrinal standards of the Church of Scot- 
land as set forth in the " Westminster Confession 
of Faith " a great gulf was fixed. As I read the 
scriptural narrative, authority to teach unerringly 
was clearly committed to a body of men by our Lord 
Himself and power to bind and to loose was con- 
ferred upon them with the same definiteness as He 
had derived it from His Father. I found nothing 
to correspond with this in the Presbyterian stand- 
ards, and the result was a state of perplexity of 
mind which gave me much concern and might have 
issued in total unbelief had not Providence opened 
to me the way to the Catholic Church. 

Lastly, I was confronted in the years of which I 
speak with the majestic idea of the Real Presence. 
My dear father always bore a conspicuous part in 
the inner work of the Presbyterian sect and in my 
boyhood days, as ruling elder in the particular con- 
gregation to which as a family we were attached, 
had the custody of the vessels used in the com- 
munion service and the providing of the elements 
necessary on such occasions. This being so it fol- 
lows that I had every opportunity of observing the 
celebration of this service among Presbyterians, al- 
though never participating in it, and I here bear 
witness to the solemn earnestness with which it was 
in those days observed. I do not know how it is 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 311 

now but imagine that in this as in other things Pres- 
byterianism has fallen under the sway of the less 
serious if more emotional Methodist type which 
seems now to dominate what is called Evangelical 
Christianity. The deep earnestness of the Scottish 
character preserved the national religion for three 
hundred years from becoming mere emotionalism, but 
within the past half century this barrier has broken 
down and long strides been taken away from the old 
dogmatic type which was formerly synonymous with 
the name of Scotsman. In the service I speak of 
the solemn words of consecration which to a Cath- 
olic mean so much, while uttered with a high degree 
of reverence symbolized only a remembrance of the 
Last Supper, not of course a sacrifice or any 
change in the elements. I cannot say that at that 
time I had any idea of a higher interpretation ; but 
when later I met with the idea of the Real Pres- 
ence as the natural and proper meaning of our 
Lord's words it furnished a key to ecclesiastical his- 
tory which, without the light of that great truth, 
was hard and inexplicable. And this seems the 
proper place to say that, as I progressed, I was im- 
pressed by the fact that the Catholic interpretation 
of Scripture was invariably in keeping with the 
natural and obvious meaning of the text, while, in 
inverse ratio, the Protestant interpretation was 
forced and strained. I found, too, that the late 
Bishop Brownlow's maxim that when scripture is 
quoted against the Church the most effective retort 

21 



312 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

is usually to ask the disputant to read the next verse, 
is a sound one. I had myself been struck with the 
incongruity of our Lord in instituting this sacra- 
ment not meaning apparently what He said, and 
when gradually it dawned upon me that the great 
Catholic Church, existing from the beginning and 
alone teaching with the voice of authority, pro- 
claimed that Christ really gave us His own Flesh 
and Blood, a definiteness and consistency was given 
to the sacred narrative which bore in upon me with 
irresistible force. I have read much on this subject 
both before and after I became a Catholic, and have 
come to consider the argument for the Catholic 
interpretation of the words of institution, apart alto- 
gether from the Divine character of her teaching, 
as simply irresistible. It was Cardinal Newman, 
however, who first brought me face to face with 
this sublime truth, and while as I have said I did 
not at once grasp the full import of it, a train of 
thought was opened to me which ere long subdued 
me completely and brought me to realize that the 
Catholic Church was my true home. 

When then in the Apologia, the fair form of the 
everlasting Church burst upon my vision these 
thoughts of many years had produced in me a 
receptive mind and a temper to reverence and ad- 
mire. I do not say that they had accompanied a 
life of prayer, or that, up to that time they had 
materially affected my life. On the contrary, I can 
look back upon those years only with regret and com- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 313 

punction, as years given up to the service of the 
world and with little or no thought of my eternal 
destiny. But if I had drifted far from my moor- 
ings the moorings themselves were unstable and 
were drifting further and further from the Rock 
upon which the Christian Church is built. We hear 
much in these days of a reunion of various forms 
of Protestantism, but any such reunion must be built 
upon the sacrifice of the cherished, if mistaken, 
convictions of former generations. This is indeed 
the one prevailing characteristic of all the sects : that 
what formerly were cherished as divine truths have 
now ceased to have any force or vitality and must 
not so much as be named among them. The dogma 
of a state of future retribution is a case in point. 
This elementary truth is no doubt held by a con- 
siderable number in private but is rarely heard of in 
public, and, like many other traditional beliefs, has 
gone down before the all-corroding intellect of man. 
Even belief in the Divinity of Christ is not immune 
from this overmastering tendency and no extraordi- 
nary qualities of penetration are necessary to discern 
in the near future, religion outside of the Catholic 
Church transformed into pure humanitarianism bent 
solely upon making the most of this world. Things 
have already advanced far in this direction and no 
human power can stem the torrent. But, as God 
has not deserted his people, out of this evil may 
come good, and as the years pass an increasing 
number of the more serious minded, appalled by the 



314 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

impending destruction of all faith in the super- 
natural, find their way into the one Church whose 
builder and maker is God. 

To sum up, then, my conversion was mainly ef- 
fected by the contemplation of those two essential 
truths, the Divine authority of the Church and the 
Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in 
the Holy Eucharist; two truths which satisfy the 
intellect and soothe the heart as only a Catholic 
can understand. They illustrated and typified and 
brought home to my innermost consciousness the 
living, breathing fact that God is ever with His 
people, leading them with outstretched hand through 
all the dangers and pitfalls of this earthly pilgrim- 
age to their heavenly home. I have not dwelt upon 
other dogmas of the Faith all of which are of course 
equally true, and coalesce to form a beautiful and 
harmonious whole. The authority of the Church 
was the keystone of the arch and that being demon- 
strated, all else followed as a matter of course. Of 
the difficulties encountered in the course of my en- 
quiries, many and various as they were, I am not 
called upon to deal with here. They arose alto- 
gether from misconceptions, such as are common to 
most converts, as did those stains on the imagination 
which, even after the intellect is satisfied, remain 
sometimes until actual experience within the Church 
effectually and forever dispel them. Suffice it to 
say that all difficulties gradually dissolved as I 
progressed and the nearer I drew to the Bride of 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 315 

Christ the fairer she appeared. Auricular confes- 
sion from being a stumbhng block became a stepping 
stone and devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the 
Saints so far from derogating from the honor due 
to Our Lord, as in my ignorance I had believed, 
was found rather to foster and develep it. To 
that Blessed Lady the greatness of my debt only 
eternity can reveal. She, true to her mission, com- 
forted me in my discouragements, supported me 
when I stumbled and raised me when I had fallen, 
drawing me nearer and nearer the while to her 
Divine Son, who with wide-open arms stood ready 
to receive me. Under this blessed influence the 
way opened before me. In the year 1882 I had 
several interviews with the late Archbishop Lynch, 
whom I came to know intimately, and whose sim- 
ple apostolic life greatly impressed me. By his ad- 
vice I placed myself under the instruction of a 
young scholastic, himself a convert, now a well- 
known priest of this archdiocese. With his assis- 
tance all remaining barriers were removed and, on 
the twenty-third of October, the feast of Our Most 
Holy Redeemer, 1883, in the Archbishop's private 
chapel at St. John's Grove, I came into the one true 
Church of God. 



WILLIAM MARKOE, 

WHITE BEAR LAKE, MINNESOTA. 
Edited by his son. 

As my dear father is now rounding out his 88th 
year, he no longer feels equal to the task of pre- 
paring the account of his conversion for the readers 
of " Some Roads to Rome in America." He has 
therefore authorized me to put together such facts, 
taken from his own writings, journal, etc., and from 
his frequent descriptions given to us at various 
times, as may seem appropriate. I am, however, 
happily able to give much of it in his own words, 
written when he was younger and better fitted for 
correspondence with both friend and foe than at the 
present day. 

My father was born in Philadelphia, Pa., on July 
25, 1820; and baptized in infancy by Bishop White 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He belonged 
to a well known Philadelphia family, American of 
Americans, whose traditions lead back to Revolu- 
tionary days, when American and Briton met in 
deadly combat for the possession of our country. 
His grandfather is known to have presented to the 
Philadelphia City Troop a flag which is still pre- 
served as a relic, and which is believed to be the 
first flag suggesting the thirteen stripes to be made 
in this country. 

316 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 317 

As a little boy, a mere child, he attended a board- 
ing school conducted by a Rev. Wm. Chaderton, an 
Episcopal clergyman, at Burlington, New Jersey. 
During his stay, the school was moved to Bolton 
Farm, about 5 miles northwest of Bristol, Pa. ; and 
afterwards to Philadelphia. 

Belonging to a family of social position, and 
which was for some years in a constant whirl of 
social gaiety, he heard little of religion, receiving 
no very definite religious instruction of any kind 
so far as he could recall in later years. 

About 1833 ^^ was transferred to a Mr. Walker's 
day school in Philadelphia; and in 1834 he attended 
another Philadelphia school conducted by a Mr. 
Espy. When about fifteen he spent some eighteen 
months at Easton, Pa., with an uncle, to whom he 
considers himself indebted for the first definite real- 
ization of what study really meant, and of the pur- 
pose of the books which had been placed in his 
hands when at school. Under him he began to 
make real progress, and to understand the rationale 
of his studies. 

He next took up the study of law; then spent 
some time at civil engineering ; went to Illinois with 
an older brother to take up farming ; became ill and 
returned home; again resumed civil engineering, 
and was forced by serious illness to return home 
once more. His journal, in March, 1842, states 
that " in consequence of this sickness I endeavoured 
to reform my life and to live according to the law 



3l8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

of God." In the winter of 1842-3 he began to study 
Greek, etc., with a view to Holy Orders in the Epis- 
copal Church, having received his first communion 
a short time previously. In 1843, April 2, being 
the Fifth Sunday of Lent, he was confirmed by 
Bishop Onderdonk of Pennsylvania. 

It was somewhere about this period of his life 
that, feeling the necessity of some definite guidance 
as to his moral conduct, he had a long talk with 
the Rev. Dr. Morton upon questions of conscience. 
One of his sisters afterwards wrote to him, in the 
West, that Dr. Morton had remarked that he hoped 
" the Catholics would not get hold of William out 
West ; that they would give him all the rules of con- 
duct that he wanted." My father has often mar- 
veled at this in later years, as indicating that the 
shrewd old doctor had discovered then some tend- 
ency towards the Catholic Church of which my 
father himself was totally unconscious. 

In the fall of 1843 ^^ ^^t out for St. Louis, 
intending to take his course of studies there for the 
ministry. In May of 1844 he left St. Louis, at 
the wish of Bishop Kemper, for Nashotah, Wis- 
consin, accompanied by William Stout. 

In the spring of 1845 he returned to Philadelphia 
to prepare for admission to the General Theological 
Seminary in New York, taking a private prepar- 
atory course with Rev. J. Bonnar. In May, 1846, 
he returned to Nashotah, where he boarded with 
Mr. Samuel Breck until October, when he at length 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 319 

went to the General Theological Seminary in New- 
York. 

During the spring of 1847 he spent several weeks 
at Long Branch; and it was probably at this time 
that he met a young lady, who was a Catholic and 
with whom he spent some pleasant hours. She 
made him promise her that he would call upon 
Bishop Kenrick upon his return to Philadelphia. 
He did so, and the bishop gave him a copy of his 
book upon the See of Peter. But the entire in- 
cident seems to have left so little impression upon 
him that for years it was entirely forgotten; and 
he could not in later years even recall the nature 
of his conversation with the bishop. 

This is the only instance that he recalls where he 
came in any way in contact with religious teaching 
amongst Catholics, or with Catholic books. 

One long forgotten incident during his days at 
the Theological Seminary is noted in his journal. 
In November, 1848, he called one evening upon Rev. 
Mr. Preston at Mr. Coddington's, and suggested to 
him a plan which he had conceived '' of forming a 
parish in Philadelphia of which he is to be the head, 
and Ralston Cox and I curates under him. He 
said if such a design could be put into execution 
he should consider himself bound to accept the posi- 
tion." Mr. Preston years afterwards died a Mon- 
signor of the Catholic Church in New York, and the 
subject of this sketch also came into the true faith 
in after years. 



320 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Some time later he severed his connection with Dr. 
Muhlenberg's parish, and became a member of Dr. 
Forbes' parish of St. Luke, making his confession 
to the Doctor. Years later, when unsettled about 
his faith, he went to see Dr. Forbes, then a Catholic 
priest; but, not finding him, he was seen by Rev. 
Wm. Everett instead. Dr. Forbes soon afterwards 
relapsed from the true faith. 

After graduating at the Seminary, he returned to 
Philadelphia, and soon afterwards was married in 
St. James' Church by Dr. Morton. 

He was examined for Holy Orders by Bishop 
Kemper, Dr. Morton and Mr. Odenheimer, and 
was admitted to Deacon's Orders by Bishop Kem- 
per in St. James' Church in Philadelphia. On Sep- 
tember 22, 1849, he again arrived at Nashotah, with 
his wife and her sister, where they took up their 
quarters with Dr. Adams and his excellent wife. 
On March 17, 1850, he was presented for Priest's 
Orders by the Rev. Messrs, Akerly and Keene, in 
St. Paul's Church, Milwaukee, and ordained by 
Bishop Kemper. 

He built a beautiful country place near Nashotah, 
and lived there quietly, attending to his duties as 
pastor of his parish, for several years. But his 
health was poor, alternating between fair health and 
serious illness, and he was rapidly becoming more 
and more troubled and unsettled in his religious 
belief. 

His broken health was largely due to the expe- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 321 

riences he had had in the early Nashotah days, when 
the Rev. James Lloyd Breck was striving to realize 
there the Catholic ideal of the true monastic life. 
My father often refers to that period in his life, and 
to his intimate relations with Mr. Breck during 
those early days. He has told us how, under Mr. 
Breck's grave leadership, they would all file down 
to the lake in the early morning, and, at Mr. 
Breck's word of command, one after the other 
would plunge into the cold waters for the morning 
dip. My father, having no experienced director to 
guide him in such matters, overdid the ascetic idea, 
and by underfeeding and overstudying, destroyed his 
health to a large extent for the remainder of his 
life. His mental struggles towards the Catholic 
Church I am able to repeat in his own words as he 
has told them himself. In writing, by special re- 
quest, an account of how he was led to the Church 
he has said : 

" My own conversion was purely doctrinal. It is 
not meant by this that, after the fashion of my dear 
old Episcopalian friends, I undertook to judge of 
the Church by the doctrine, instead of judging of 
the doctrine by the Church: I had learned better 
than that even then. My meaning is this : Though 
still clinging to the absurd branch theory, I logically 
and firmly believed there could be but one true 
Church on earth. The nonsensical feature in this 
heterogeneous combination of theories was, that its 
advocate, to be consistent, would be obliged to 



322 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

change his articles of faith according to the varia- 
tions among these differing and antagonistic 
branches of this extraordinary one Church, in the 
order in which he might happen to be travehng or 
sojourning around among them. My mind was, if 
not highly logical, at any rate sufficiently so to make 
it impossible for me to say of the same thing at any 
one time, it's all black and it's all white, it's all 
wrong and it's all right, it's an article of Divine 
faith in one part of God's universal Church and a 
heresy in another. As my cogitations advanced, 
it seemed ridiculous to me, in my simplicity, to 
maintain that the Episcopal Church was in com- 
munion with the Roman Church, when the latter, 
who had at least as good a right as the former to 
be a judge in the matter, utterly repudiated her 
claim, and denounced her as heretical. Neither 
could I tolerate the theory that the apostolical succes- 
sion alone was sufficient to constitute a valid por- 
tion of the Church Catholic, while it was well 
known that some of the most gigantic and powerful 
of ancient and modern heresies undoubtedly had 
this succession." 

Here we interrupt the narrative to remark that, 
of course, even the claim to apostolical succession 
has again been refuted by Leo XIII, so that even 
this slender thread can no longer sustain the hopes 
of our Episcopalian friends for corporate reunion 
with Rome. But to resume. 

'' Wherever or whatever the Church of God was, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 323 

my logic — and I couldn't get rid of it — told me 
it must, in the first place, be ONE and undivided 
in all things ultimately settled by its authority. My 
mind was instinctively looking for those four things 
which the Apostles' creed, retained even in the Epis- 
copal Church, declares to be essential characteristics 
of the true Body of Christ, that it must be ' ONE,' 
' Holy,' ' Catholic,' and ' Apostolic' My thoughts 
naturally ran upon the first of these; for, without 
that one, all the others must fall to the ground. 
When, therefore, it is said that my conversion was 
doctrinal, it is meant that the oneness, the coherence, 
the logical and theological completeness and har- 
mony of the doctrines of the Catholic Church, as 
regards their relations to each other and to natural 
laws, and to all the purest and loftiest impulses and 
aspirations of human nature, overwhelmed me with 
the conviction that the Roman Catholic Church was 
the ONE and only spiritual organization on this 
earth to which my allegiance was due ; and this con- 
clusion was reached without my ever having read a 
Catholic work, except a Catholic Theodicee, and in 
spite of the strong anti-Catholic prejudices in which 
I had been educated from my childhood. 

" But what, it may be asked, was the mental proc- 
ess through which, at last, this goal was reached 
and what was the guiding star that led to it? 
. . . I will do my best to make everything 
clear to you. . . The story is a strange one. 

" The real light that led me to my Catholic home 



324 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

was the doctrine of Transubstaiitiation ! yes! that 
doctrine which has proved a stumbHng-block and 
a rock of offence to so many souls ; which has been 
mocked, derided and denounced by so many of the 
wise men of the world, as unreasonable, unphilo- 
sophical, a denial of the evidence of the senses and as 
altogether preposterous — it was that doctrine that 
landed me in the bosom of the Church. And, 
where, you will ask me, did I, being a Protestant 
at the time, get that doctrine from? The answer, 
perhaps, will prove still more of a puzzle. My 
thanks for the doctrine are due to the Episcopal 
book of Common Prayer, the Old and New Testa- 
ments and, it is humbly believed and trusted, to 
the grace of God. But let me explain my position. 
" In 1843, I think it was, I determined to study 
for the Episcopal ministry. Although Philadelphia 
was my home, as it was my intention to serve as 
a missionary in the West, I went in 1844, to pursue 
my studies at Kemper College, an institution about 
five miles from St. Louis, established by dear, good 
old Bishop Kemper, the indefatigable and sincerely 
pious Episcopal missionary Bishop of the North- 
western Territory. In about six months after my 
arrival there, the college broke down financially 
and, if my memory is correct, was turned into a 
county poorhouse. I, with two of my fellow- 
students, not wishing to leave the West, went to 
Wisconsin and joined a missionary educational es- 
tabHshment, the Nashotah Mission, founded by 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 325 

three zealous clergymen with a view to test the 
practicability of monastic enterprises under the 
Episcopalian regime. There we studied, did our 
own work, even washing our own clothes, cooking 
our own meals and working the farm at the same 
time. My somewhat incongruous lot was to bake 
bread twice a week for thirty men. Notwithstand- 
ing all this work, we were kept assiduously at our 
devotions. Most of us were thoroughly in earnest. 
For myself I rejoiced in the somewhat romantic idea 
of leading a monastic life. I loved the labor, the 
study and the devotions. I sometimes, indeed, 
wished we could have more to eat and of a better 
quality. The fare was generally scant and 
wretched, partly from poverty and partly on 
principle. Obedience to rule and unfailing atten- 
tion to devotions were, with me, points of honor 
as well as matters of religion. It can readily be 
understood that this mode of living kept our 
thoughts almost constantly on religious subjects. 
My great ambition was to conform as nearly as 
possible to the lives of the early Christians. I 
fasted severely and beyond my strength; even on 
ordinary Fridays eating and drinking absolutely 
nothing till 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and con- 
tinuing my work just the same. Some of us had 
permission to go to communion every day. Need 
it be said that, as a consequence, my own mind was 
constantly running on this great subject; and that, 
therefore, a spiritual crisis was rapidly approaching. 



326 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

The more my thoughts dwelt upon the question of 
the Real Presence — which I always believed in, in 
some vagiie w^ay or other — the more wonderful 
and mysterious and inexplicable it seemed in its 
spiritual and theological aspects. The conviction 
pressed upon me more and more that, considering 
the great central position this sacrament occupied 
in the Roman, the Greek, the Russian and even in 
some of the more ancient schismatical communions, 
there must be something vastly greater and more 
profound about it than anything we Protestants had 
yet grasped. Even the communion service in the 
Episcopal prayer book was very suggestive of some 
wonderful and adorable presence in the consecrated 
bread and wine; but, unhappily, just where one 
might expect that the soul was about to be filled 
with some satisfying doctrine on the subject, just 
there some lame and impotent and illogical conclu- 
sion was arrived at which left the mind gazing, as 
it were, into vacancy. Still, I thank the prayer 
book for its suggestiveness. It was these frag- 
ments of Catholic teaching which kept my mind 
ever on the alert for the inevitable logical deduc- 
tions which I was convinced could not be far off. 

" One morning, after receiving communion — it 
was no sacrament, but God's mercy, I solemnly be- 
lieve, sent a special grace with it — a light, like a 
flash from heaven, burst in upon my poor soul. It 
was like the sun suddenly beaming through a rift 
in the dark storm cloud. It was no miracle, but it 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 327 

was a distinctive grace. It could have been noth- 
ing else. Instantly the whole doctrine of the In- 
carnation in all its offices and functions bearing 
upon man's fall and his redemption and sanctifica- 
tion, opened to my perception. The absolute neces- 
sity, in the scheme of salvation, for the literal in- 
terpretation of our Lord's words in the sixth chap- 
ter of St. John seemed irrefutable to me, and justi- 
fied beyond cavil the doctrine of the Catholic 
Church as to Transubstantiation. Every doctrine of 
Christianity seemed illuminated by the Incarnation. 
Faith, works, justification, sanctification, prevent- 
ing grace, works in Christ and works out of Christ, 
and all those matters so mooted among Protestants, 
fell into their proper places, and Catholic doctrine 
ranged itself before me as one coherent, perfect, 
glorious whole. It always appeared to my mental 
vision like a picture. There was the bright, central 
sun, the Incarnation. The beautiful beams of light 
which, without separation from the main body, con- 
tinuously, naturally and necessarily streamed from 
it, were the seven sacraments and the whole round 
of Catholic doctrines. I seemed, without any ade- 
quate study, to have almost mastered, at least in 
its general features, the sum and substance of Catho- 
lic theology. The relief to my troubled mind was 
beyond expression. But did I, then, without fur- 
ther delay, rush at once to hide myself in the bosom 
of my long lost mother ? 

" Alas ! for the dullness of the soul, even to God's 
2 



328 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

greatest mercies: I remained an Episcopalian for 
some nine years afterwards; but it was always 
under a delusion. I clung to the fatuous theory 
that the Episcopal Church might yet be set right if 
her children would only work faithfully to that end 
within her fold. During my subsequent studies, 
at the General Theological Seminary in New York, 
I adhered to my ideas of the Incarnation, but I 
found few to sympathize with me or even to under- 
stand what I meant. Remnants of the doctrine in 
its integrity might be found occasionally in some 
of the oldest Anglican writers ; but, however it was 
then, or, under the influences of the tractarian 
movement and of modern ritualism, however it may 
be now, certainly in my time it was among Protes- 
tants almost an unheard of notion. The persistent 
denial of Transubstantiation emasculated every 
Protestant attempt to uphold the Incarnation in its 
completeness. That definition alone, has saved the 
great central fact of Christianity, " et verhiim caro 
factum est," from all paring down and from all 
possibility of misconception or of subtle evasion. 
" When, after ordination, I returned to Nashotah 
as a missionary, being still full of my beautiful vi- 
sion, it cropped out on every occasion. It was the 
under current of thought in every sermon I 
preached. It would not down in my conversations 
with my brother clergymen, and the natural re- 
sult followed. I was a marked man. When the 
period of my diaconate had expired I nearly lost 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 329 

my ordination to the priesthood on the question of 
the Real Presence. It was only the kindness of 
dear old Bishop Kemper's heart that let me through. 
" To shorten my story, I was spiritually and so- 
cially more and more alone. The situation seemed 
a lifeless, homeless one and became worse and 
worse every day. All my reading — upon prin- 
ciple I avoided Catholic books — dispirited me. It 
seemed flat, stale, unprofitable, artificial, forced and 
utterly false. The Ritualist Clergy — they were 
just coming on then — seemed affected and silly : 
mere children playing church; though, we believe 
they were in all sincerity. At length I moved, with 
my wife and two little children, to Burling- 
ton, N. J., in hopes of finding relief in new 
pastures. There we met the late Monsignor 
Doane, with whom a sympathy soon sprang up 
on the great question; though a sympathy of 
a very quiet kind; for I was a quasi guest in his 
father's diocese. Finally, after we had moved to 
New Brunswick in the same state, the Ecclesiasti- 
cal History of Great Britain, by the Protestant 
Collier, finished my career as an Episcopalian. He 
destroyed all my long cherished idols, and most 
effectually. Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, good Queen 
Bess and even the old British Bishops of St. 
Augustine notoriety, and the whole tribe of Re- 
formers, appeared to me as a most vacillating, tur- 
bulent, self-seeking set of God-forsaken rebels, in- 
stead of honest, learned, trustworthy Christian 



330 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

guides. I was appalled. My God! I thought, are 
these the leaders to whom the keeping of my soul 
has been so long confided? Are these the guides 
of my salvation? Are these the great champions 
of God's unchangeable truth ? 

'' The work was done. On the second of Au- 
gust, 1855, my wife, whose convictions had kept 
pace with my own, our two little ones and myself 
were received into the bosom of the Holy Mother 
Church, by Father Everett, in St. Ann's Church, 
New York. Soon afterwards the joyful news 
reached us that George Doane, as we then called 
him, had gone to Bishop Bayley at midnight and 
asked to be received into the true fold, and that he 
was now a Catholic. A most kind letter of con- 
gratulation was soon received from Father Pres- 
ton, who had preceded us into the Church. He 
had been a tower of strength and a rare example 
of piety to many of us at the Seminary. 

Only one great disappointment of a spiritual 
nature do I recall after my reception into the 
Church. Everything appeared so clear, so beauti- 
ful and satisfying to me, that it seemed as if it 
would only be necessary to show to others what I 
saw, in order to make them also gladly embrace the 
Faith. Failure followed nearly every attempt. 
One day walking along the road with an old Irish 
farmer I spoke in a disappointed tone of these fail- 
ures. He looked at me in a half pitying, half con- 
temptuous way and, with an expressive, nervous, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 331 

irritable twitch at the tails of his coat, he exclaimed, 
' There are some of them Jesus Christ Himself 
couldn't convert, and what can you do ? ' His 
words have been a consolation to me ever since. 

" Dr. Brownson somewhere deprecates the talk 
indulged in about the sacrifices made by converts 
to the Church; as if the reputed losses were for a 
moment to be compared with the infinite gains. I 
agree with him. It seems to me affectation and 
a worldly want of appreciation of those gains, as 
well as a base ingratitude for the w^onderful work 
which a merciful God does for the converted. Sac- 
rifices, then, compared with the peace of mind and 
the solaces enjoyed, even as to this life, I have had 
none worthy of the name. My own immediate 
family are good Catholics and devoted to their God. 
What greater happiness could a sinful creature ask 
of his Creator? My experiences, then, as a Catho- 
lic, have simply been peace, rest, confidence, and a 
sure hope of eternal life through the infallible prom- 
ises of God. And now let me finish with weightier 
words than I can utter — the words of Dr. New- 
man: 

" * Such were the thoughts concerning the 
" Blessed vision of Peace " of one whose long con- 
tinued petition had been that the Most Merciful 
would not despise the work of His own hands, nor 
leave him to himself; while yet his eyes were dim, 
and his breast laden, and he could but employ 
Reason in the things of Faith. And now, dear 



332 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

reader, time is short, eternity is long. Put not 
from you what you have here found; regard it not 
as a mere matter of present controversy; set not 
out resolved to refute it, and looking about for the 
best way of doing so; seduce not yourself with 
the imagination that it comes of disappointment, or 
disgust, or restlessness, or wounded feeling, or 
undue sensibility, or other weakness. Wrap not 
yourself round in the associations of years past; 
nor determine that to be truth which you wish to 
be so, nor make an idol of cherished anticipations. 
Time is short, eternity is long.' 

'' Nunc dimittis serviim tuum, domine, secundum 
verhum fuum in pace: quia viderunt oculi ntei sa- 
lutare tuum'* 



WILLIAM STETSON MERRILL, 

A.B., HARVARD. 
Assistant Librarian, the Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. 

I was brought up in the sect of the Sweden- 
borgians or Church of the New Jerusalem, as those 
call themselves who' accept the doctrines of 
Emmanuel Swedenborg. This eminent Swedish 
scientist late in life believed himself divinely ap- 
pointed to teach a new interpretation of Christianity 
and to found a new church which was to be, as he 
claimed, a fulfilment of the Scriptural prophecies 
concerning the second coming of Christ. He held 
that the Scriptures have an allegorical or " spirit- 
ual " sense and that all things in the realm of 
nature have similarly a " correspondence " to the 
things of heaven. But Swedenborg's most re- 
markable legacy to posterity is a series of narratives 
of sights seen by him through his " spiritual eyes " 
and conversations had by him with angels, demons 
and the spirits of the departed. 

Doubts of the reality of what Swedenborg has re- 
lated came to me when I was about fifteen years old, 
and about the same time, impelled by a widening 
curiosity on religious matters, I began to inquire 
into the beliefs of other churches and to attend 
333 



334 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

their services. A retired banker lent me some very 
radical books in v^hich an attempt was made to 
trace Christianity to purely natural sources and 
even to derive it from Buddhism. I read some of 
the theories of German Biblical critics and used to 
discuss philosophy with a schoolmate who was 
studying for the Protestant Episcopal ministry. 
The differences dividing the various sects of Christi- 
anity now became to me of less import than a 
rational foundation for our belief in the existence of 
God, the freedom of the will, and the immortality of 
the soul. My interest in philosophy was stimulated 
by the hope of finding through it proofs of these 
great truths of the religious life. 

At eighteen years of age 1 entered Harvard 
University and took as part of my curriculum a 
number of courses in psychology, ethics, history of 
philosophy, and metaphysics. My teachers were 
professors Bowen, James, Royce and Palmer — all 
men of reputation and independent views. I recol- 
lect writing on the Registrar's record that I was 
a rationalist in religion but preferred the Episcopal 
service. I had considerable sympathy with the 
Broad Church movement in that denomination, 
which permits the adherent to believe pretty much 
as he pleases; but I was not as yet inclined to join 
any church. When I graduated from the Univer- 
sity I was still unsettled in religious belief. My 
study of philosophy had shown me the problems 
that confront the student, had trained me to view 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 335 

them strictly upon their merits, and had taught me 
to use my own powers of mind in solving them. 
Whatever may be the educational value of such a 
mode of teaching philosophy, in my own case it 
rendered me more ready than I think I should 
otherwise have been- to give a fair hearing to the 
claims of the Catholic Church. 

Among my classmates at the University was a 
young man of quiet, refined manner, a Catholic, 
with whom I often talked on questions of philoso- 
phy and religion. When points were raised by me 
or by other classmates against the Catholic Church, 
as would sometimes happen when we were gathered 
about the dining table, he would good-humoredly 
but effectively hold his own in defence of his faith; 
but he never tried to make a Catholic of me or 
even suggested that I should look into the claims 
of the Catholic Church. In a letter that I wrote 
him after graduation I mentioned quite casually 
that I was still wandering about like a lost sheep 
in search of a fold. To my surprise he wrote me 
in reply, " You will never find rest for your reason 
except in the Catholic Church." My correspond- 
ent was then studying for the priesthood in the 
Paulist college at Washington, D. C. His remark 
surprised me the more because I had always looked 
upon the Catholic Church as the most conservative 
of the churches and therefore not likely to interest 
one who looked to the science and philosophy of the 
future for a solution of religious problems. Yet 



336 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

upon reflection I had to admit to myself that I 
knew nothing about the Catholic Church or what 
it teaches; and so I wrote back to my friend that 
I should like to ask him some questions about his 
church. He cordially assented; and so began a 
correspondence that lasted for more than two years. 
To these letters of one who is to-day the zealous 
and well-beloved pastor of a great Western parish, 
I owe, more than to any other human agency, my 
conversion to the Catholic faith. But there were to 
be searchings of the heart, anxious deliberations, 
wrenching of family ties, and some prejudice to be 
overcome before that moment came. 

What impressed me most in my friend's letters 
was his presentation of the Catholicity of the Cath- 
olic Church, just as my conception of her intolerance 
was my greatest difficulty. I had been neglecting 
the past and looked only to the future ; the Church 
builds upon the past and tests the present and the 
future. I saw that I had been less broad in all my 
boasted liberality than the Church has been in her 
supposed narrowness. There was, moreover, in the 
conception of a church that is one, holy, catholic, 
and apostolic something that appealed to my imagi- 
nation as none of the sects had done; and that idea 
also conformed to my ideal of what a church should 
be. I readily admitted my friend's postulate that 
a church that is divinely established to guide men to 
eternal salvation must be an infallible interpreter 
of revelation. The American Constitution, al- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 337 

though it was expressed in the clearest possible 
terms and subjected to the scrutiny of the finest 
legal minds of the time when it was promulgated, 
yet has required a judiciary culminating in the Su- 
preme Court to interpret its meaning and to de- 
termine its application; and even these safeguards 
have proved insufficient to save the Union without 
an appeal to arms. How much more does the 
Bible, which is the constitution, as it were, by which 
man must direct his life in the Christian common- 
wealth, need an interpreter if Christian unity is to 
be maintained and the laws of the spiritual life 
wholesomely observed! A divine revelation must 
reveal truth to man. If it is liable to more than one 
interpretation, or is open to contradictory meanings 
upon vital points of belief — and there would be 
no need of revelation if no truths were vital or 
essential to salvation — then revelation is incom- 
plete. The Catholic Church claims to be an in- 
fallible interpreter of the teachings of Christ as re- 
corded in Scripture or handed down by tradition. 
Theologians may discuss, sometimes for centuries, 
questions of interpretation or of speculative theol- 
ogy; yet in the fulness of time, when the welfare 
of the faithful demands that a definition be made, 
the Church, acting under the divine guidance, is 
competent to make it. Revelation thus becomes a 
living truth and is not left, as Protestants make 
it to be, a dead letter. 

The charge of intolerance, so often brought 



338 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

against the Church, was, as I have said, my most 
serious difficulty. My intellectual sympathies were 
wide. I rejoiced in the progress of science and 
archaeology, and in the application of critical and 
historical methods to various branches of knowl- 
edge. Does not the Church oppose or at least dis- 
courage such inquiries, I asked my corresjx)ndent. 
The Catholic Church, he replied, encourages and 
fosters every movement by which the bounds of 
human knowledge are enlarged; but she tests re- 
sults by the criterion of revealed truth. The scien- 
tific sphere along its periphery touches upon truths 
essential to man's spiritual welfare and to the con- 
servation of these truths the Church cannot be in- 
different. Her problem is, so to speak, how to be 
faithful to the divine " deposit " of revelation and 
yet yield to reason its legitimate fruits. Her policy 
may change from aige to age as to the means by 
which this end is to be attained, just as the policy 
of administration in the civil State changes with 
the times; but the obligation laid upon her by the 
divine commission remains constant. Scientists 
and critics are never so far-seeing as the Church; 
they look only along the line of their own re- 
searches. The Church, like a city set on a hill, 
sees in all directions. True catholicity is not an 
easy-going acceptance of opinions as all more or 
less true, but it is a critical incorporation of truth 
wherever found into the unity of one self-consistent 
whole. This catholicity is found in the philosophy 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 339 

as well as in the theology of the Church. The sys- 
tem of St. Thomas is founded upon the most com- 
prehensive thinker of antiquity — Aristotle — who 
in turn utilized the best thought of his predecessors. 
The activity of Catholic scholars, of the so-called 
Neo-scholastic Movement, in interpreting and criti- 
cising the theories of modern psychologists and 
metaphysicians in the light of scholastic principles, 
bears testimony to the vitality and adaptability of 
the method. In Biblical studies too, the late Pope 
Leo, while urging Catholic students to keep abreast 
■of the progress of criticism, pointed out the mode in 
which the language of the sacred writers should be 
interpreted in the face of seemingly contradictory 
evidence from science or archaeology. 

I had reached a point in my search after religious 
truth where I was satisfied that the Catholic Church 
is the true fold; I need be a wanderer no longer. 
Yet to test the soundness of my reasoning I wrote 
to my old chum the Episcopalian, who was study- 
ing under distinguished professors in a German 
university, and asked him to tell me why, in the 
light of what he knew of theology and church his- 
tory, I should not become a Roman Catholic. My 
friend I knew to be never at a loss in controversy; 
and I may add that he afterwards became professor 
of church history in a seminary of his denomi- 
nation. He replied in a closely written letter of 
fifty pages in which the objections of the " other 
side " were presented ably and dispassionately, I 



340 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

considered his arguments carefully; and while I 
recognized in some of them difficulties, at least 
for one not well versed in theology and church 
history, yet I found nothing to shake the faith of 
one who knew and realized the true nature and 
mission of the Catholic Church and was willing 
to read the New Testament without trying to twist 
words from their plain and natural meanings. The 
Catholic is not bound to prove his faith, although 
when properly instructed he is fully capable of 
doing so. It is enough for him that the Catholic 
,Church has an unbroken continuity with Christ and 
St. Peter, the leader of the Apostles. The Catholic 
Church is in possession, and possession is nine 
points of the law. It is for others to disprove, if 
they can, her claim to be the one fold of Christ; 
and to show that the promises of Christ do not 
apply to her. Such is the attitude in which I 
think the convert should place himself; standing 
thus upon the Rock of Peter, he is impregnable. 

I did not, however, make up my mind to enter 
the Catholic Church without some severe mental 
struggles, vague doubts, and hesitation traceable to 
inherited prejudice against the Roman Church. 
Converts nearly always have a similar experience 
and with some I believe the temptation to draw 
back must be terrible. Nothing but prayer is one's 
resource at that supreme moment. One morning 
following a day when all looked dark before my 
mental vision, I awoke at peace; my hesitation had 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 34I 

vanished and I was ready and eager to put myself 
under instruction for baptism into the Cathohc 
Church. I had received the divine gift of faith. I 
at once secured a letter of introduction to the late 
Reverend N. L. Mooney, then attached to the 
Cathedral parish in Chicago, and after a period of 
instruction of unusual thoroughness, I was received 
on Christmas Eve, 1892. Father Mooney was a 
man of wide reading and sound erudition, and to 
the care with which I was prepared, not only in the 
doctrines of the Catechism but also in many points 
of philosophy and church history, I owe the ready 
solution of many a difficulty in later years. I have 
never had a moment's doubt or regret since I be- 
came a Catholic. 

Converts are accused of abandoning reason in 
despair and of taking refuge in blind faith. The 
charge, when made in all sincerity, arises from a 
misconception of the nature of revealed truth. I 
use my reason, in the first place, to determine which 
is the true Church, to test its claims and to answer 
the objections brought against it. In the second 
place, I supplement my reason with truths of reve- 
lation; I do not supplant reason by faith. The 
dogmas of faith are not contrary to reason, al- 
though most of them are above the power of reason 
adequately to conceive and to explain. The Ameri- 
can who accepts a ruling of the Supreme Court 
does not nullify his reason. He accepts the testi- 
mony of an authority which his reason assures him 



342 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

to be trustworthy. That is what the CathoHc does 
in accepting the dogma of the infalHbiHty of the 
Pope with this difference, however : that the Amer- 
ican's confidence in the Supreme Court is based 
upon human and practical grounds, while the faith 
of the Catholic in a dogma of the Church rests 
upon the promises of Christ that His Church shall 
never fail. Catholics alone among Christians, I be- 
lieve, understand and reverence revelation as it is 
in its true nature; just as they alone appreciate the 
Incarnation in all its implications for theology and 
worship. 



MR. JOHN MITCHELL, 

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED MINE WORKERS. 

My conversion pleased my wife as a matter of 
course, but that was not the motive that guided me 
in the matter. I had carefully investigated the sub- 
ject and had long since made up my mind that I 
wanted to die in the Catholic faith. 

I am going to do my utmost to be a good Catho- 
lic and not one of whom there are so many in the 
world, who use the Catholic Church only when they 
are in sore distress. I want to be a consistent 
Catholic and a useful one. 

"The farther I have gone down into him (Mitchell), the 
better he proves to be." — President Roosevelt. 



23 "^^^ 



MISS JULIA G. ROBINS, 

BOSTON, MASS. 

I was born and bred in Boston, in the centre of 
Unitarianism of the Conservative type, sometimes 
spoken of as Channing Unitarianism. This was 
the natural outcome of Puritanism ; a revolt against 
all that was unlovely in that too rigid creed and 
practice. It was good, sterling stock, that old Puri- 
tan New England race, and no finer exponents of 
Unitarianism could be found. Their creed, how- 
ever, did not remain stationary, but gradually a 
new school, or sect within a sect, began to develop, 
and Liberal or Radical Unitarianism came more 
and more to the front. 

Soon after I became old enough to think for 
myself and to question the beliefs that I had in- 
herited, I recognized the inconsistency of the Con- 
servative school of Unitarianism. I had been 
brought up to believe that Christ was unlike any 
other human being who had ever lived; perhaps 
even might have had pre-existence ; that He was 
without sin, had performed miracles, that He rose 
from the dead ; and yet — He was not God. I 
was told, however, that He was divine — and this 
point was made of great importance — under- 

344 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 345 

Standing the word to mean partaking of the nature 
of God, in a way quite different from that of any 
other human being who had ever lived. 

I remember the first blow which came to awaken 
me out of my security in this belief. The remark 
was made to me, " Christ was God, or Christ was 
man. He could not be divine, and yet not God; 
the terms contradict each other. There is not, and 
could not be, such a being neither God nor man." 
This statement came upon me like a sudden shock, 
but it seethed in my brain; I could not get away 
from it; and gradually my beliefs took shape, and 
I awoke to the consciousness that I was an out-and- 
out Radical Unitarian. I was confident that Jesus 
Christ was not God; therefore He was man; and 
with that conclusion all belief in miracles or any- 
thing supernatural in the Bible fell away. 

As I look back it seems meagre diet on which to 
feed a human soul; yet I still had great reverence 
for the Bible as the most holy book ever written, 
and for the person of- Christ, His perfect life, and 
His spiritual and moral teachings. In the present 
fulness of light, it is not easy to throw myself back 
into the old attitude, and I now wonder how I 
could have gleaned as much inspiration as I did 
from the reading of the Bible in those days. I re- 
member having a suspicion now and then that there 
was not, logically, enough motive power or au- 
thority for the highest religious life in the creed that 
I professed, and that probably much of our religious 



346 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

sentiment was due to a sort of inherited instinct 
from pious ancestors; but, on the whole, I was 
happy in my beHef. I had such absolute faith in 
God's goodness and love, and in a future life un- 
troubled by a thought of the existence of a devil 
or of hell, that it gave me most comforting assur- 
ance that in the end all souls would get to heaven. 
I felt sure that beyond the grave there must be 
some punishment for sin, but also a chance to repent 
and grow better, till the purified soul would be 
ready to enter into the full bliss of heaven. 

I found among Unitarians a very high moral 
standard and a strong sense of personal responsi- 
bility. Each man must live so as to save his own 
soul, as there was no belief in the redeeming power 
of Christ's blood. 

Besides the lofty standards of morality and the 
great reverence for Christ's life as the model which 
we were bidden to strive to follow (and I remem- 
ber thinking that it could only be an example to 
man, if He were man; for if God, how could any 
human being hope to walk in His footsteps?) 
there was a certain intellectual satisfaction. I 
found great solace in the thought that our beliefs 
were consistent with the proved facts of science, 
and that no supernatural religion could make good 
such a claim. This confidence was perhaps the one 
argument which kept me most firmly anchored to 
the Unitarian creed. I saw no reason to think that 
God had supernaturally revealed Himself; and as 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 347 

to belief in the Trinity, I could not imagine how 
any logical mind could hold such a view. I was, 
in fact, so firmly fixed in my opinion that it was a 
contradiction in terms and could not be true, that 
I came very near being an illiberal " Liberal.'* 

At one time I was much influenced by the preach- 
ing of one of the most " advanced " Unitarians, a 
man with uncommon gifts of oratory, with real 
love of God, and for his fellow-man, whom he was 
honestly trying to help onward and upward. This 
minister was deeply imbued with the Herbert 
Spencer school of philosophic thought, and popu- 
larized mental philosophy from the pulpit. A little 
knowledge is a dangerous thing, and this popular- 
izing or cheapening of philosophy for the multi- 
tude is one of the most insidious means of sapping 
religious belief. It puffs up with conceit the 
listener, who becomes satisfied that he has solved 
the riddle of the universe; and that it is rather an 
easy affair after all. Such methods breed the most 
arrogant self-complacency and they kept me happy 
for years, for from my lofty height I looked upon 
other creeds as hide-bound with the remnants of 
outgrown superstitions. 

And yet, all the time I clung to the beauty of the 
spiritual and moral truths in the Bible, and ear- 
nestly strove to live up to them. So convinced 
was I of being in the right, that I longed to call 
to others to come outside their barriers to breathe 
the fresh air. 



348 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Was I really at rest in my inmost heart? No; 
for I never considered these questions of religion 
as settled, and I read far and wide everything that 
seemed to promise me light — largely, however, 
the writings of the self-styled " advanced school " 
of thought. Now and then a suspicion did cross my 
mind that indifference to religion was the natural 
outcome of all this freedom. We of this genera- 
tion had the advantage of the religious beliefs of 
those preceding us, but what would become of the 
next? The laxity about church-going did not 
trouble me. I considered that church services were 
" a means, not an end." Some persons were helped 
by them, others were not; let the former then go 
to church, and the latter stay away. There was 
another phrase which helped to smother any dis- 
quietude as to where we might be drifting; it was 
this : ^' In New England we have devout free think- 
ing." True it is that in this part of our country 
there are many honest souls freely questioning re- 
ligious beliefs, and in a reverent spirit; though de- 
vout I can hardly now consider their attitude. 

Thus, with my intellectual conceit flattered by 
this fancy that our religious views were alone con- 
sistent with the proved facts of science, and fasci-| 
nated by sermons preached on that basis by a man: 
of talent, for whose character I had great respect, 
and with my soul nourished by spiritual truths taken 
from Holy Scriptures (but the supreme value of] 
which I now know so well comes from being based. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA '349 

on supernatural authority), I was cheerful and 
content. 

Without premeditation, I took a step which 
eventually led- me into the Catholic Church. / 
questioned a Catholic as to his belief. 

Before going further, it may pertinently be asked 
if this was actually the first time that the claims of 
the Catholic Church had attracted my attention; 
and I must say that it was not. Many years before 
the power of the Church as the mightiest institu- 
tion on earth had impressed me. I realized that I 
knew little about it, and that at least I ought to 
inform myself, so I asked questions of a few priests 
and other Catholics, and pondered a good deal over 
the matter at recurring intervals, but never went 
deep enough to get much light. I gained some- 
thing, so that my newly acquired interest in the 
Church was never wholly lost, but I was soon 
drawn back into my old beliefs after the most su- 
perficial acquaintance with Catholic doctrine; not 
enough to remove more than a surface prejudice 
against an institution of which I was surprisingly 
ignorant, and what seems to me now as culpably so. 

My short incursions into Catholic territory had 
not been wholly fruitless. I had learned a little — 
pitifully little, it is true — but I had gained a 
greater respect for Catholics and for their Church; 
yet I still cherished with a jaunty confidence born 
of ignorance of the very foundations of their faith, 
and nourished by a smattering of mere odds and 



350 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ends of theology, an obstinate belief that their creed 
was outgrown in the light of modern research. 

Just at this time when I was feeling especially 
happy in my " liberal " views, I happened to meet 
a friend who, to my surprise, had become a Cath- 
olic two years before. I had more than ordinary 
respect for his intellectual ability, so when the news 
came of his " going over to Rome," as the phrase 
is, my first feeling was one of keen disappointment 
in him, and I exclaimed, " How could he, of all 
men, have taken such a retrogade step ? " 

Many years had passed since our last meeting, 
when our paths came together once more. Almost 
my first words to him were : " So you have become 
a Catholic. Are you willing to tell me how this 
happened?" Looking searchingly at me, as if to 
read the motive of my question, he answered with 
great deliberation, " Yes — if you really wish to 
know." 

In what condition of mind was I that day when 
without warning came into my life the first marked 
human influence which put me on the path that in 
time led me into the Catholic Church? I was in 
the full enjoyment of a holiday time in Rome; I had 
not been harassed for two years or more by any 
special doubts about my own Unitarian standpoint, 
and was in fact in my most aggressively confident 
mood. Yet I was honest, and it was in no flippant 
spirit that I put this momentous question. There 
was an element of curiosity in it, the desire to find 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 35 1 

out if any reasonable explanation could be given for 
what seemed inexplicable. I am sure, though, that 
it did not flash across my mind for a moment 
that his statement of the case could unsettle my 
views in the least ; for was not I out in the open, as 
it were, with beliefs well in harmony with modern 
scientific thought? Still, it would be at least in- 
teresting to find out what had induced him to take 
this " retrogade " step. 

That first talk lasted a long time, and now I can 
scarcely go back and put my finger on all the points 
of Catholic doctrine so clearly stated that day that 
the old sense of security in my belief was disturbed. 
But from that hour I can date the beginning of the 
revolution which resulted in my becoming a Cath- 
olic; for though my progress was slow, and it was 
twenty-three months before I could say " I believe," 
and ask to be received into the Church, there was 
never any really backward step. 

In trying to recall what one new point of view 
was so forcibly put before me that afternoon as to 
rouse me out of my old-time lethargy, I am sure 
that it was the explanation given to me of the 
grounds on which the Catholic Church bases her 
belief in the Real Presence of our Lord in the 
Blessed Sacrament of the Altar; that belief cher- 
ished by her as so unspeakably precious, as the very 
centre of her life. I was the farthest away possible 
from any understanding as to why the Catholic 
Church held this belief, and thus had a repugnance 



352 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

towards the doctrine, and that scorn which is often 
most tenaciously clung to when it springs from ig- 
norance. I did, however, try to rid my mind of 
all prejudice as I listened; and to my amazement 
I saw at once the strong logic in the reasoning 
brought forward in support of the Catholic doctrine, 
which declares that our Saviour meant His words 
to be taken literally, while the Protestant looks upon 
them as used in a figurative sense. 

In order to be perfectly fair in the matter, what 
ought one to do first, to get at the proper inter- 
pretation of Christ's words? Simply by going 
back in imagination to the time when they were 
spoken and joining the multitude, to discover there 
on the spot what He meant His words to convey, 
and how His hearers there present understood 
them. 

Is it to be supposed that Christ meant to speak 
figuratively when He told His hearers of the fearful 
penalty attached for noncompliance with His com- 
mands ? — *' Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
Man, and drink His blood, ye have no Hfe in you." 
The command has equal force with that when, in 
teaching the necessity of the Sacrament of Baptism, 
He said, " He that believeth and is baptized shall 
be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."; 
(Mark xvi, i6). 

What was the effect of our Lord's words on the! 
multitude? Did the people believe that He had] 
taken back His words, or that He had spoken figur- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 353 

atively? What became of those who had so an- 
grily muttered against this strange idea of eating His 
flesh? Did they accept it? Quite the reverse. 
They turned away in disgust, and " walked no more 
with him." Did Christ even- then call them back, 
seeing the effect of His words ? No. He let them 
go;^ then turning to His twelve Apostles, asked 
sadly, " Will ye also go away ? " and Simon Peter, 
the spokesman instantly replied, " Lord, to whom 
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, 
and we believe and are sure that thou art that 
Christ, the Son of the living God." 

This explanation made a most powerful impres- 
sion upon me; yet it was a long time before I was 
able to accept it, for my brain was so obscured by 
a tangle of misconceptions of Catholic truth that 
it was impossible to clear them all away at once. 
There is no doubt, however, that my conversion to 
the faith dates from first hearing this explanation 
of the belief in the Real Presence. I could find no 
argument whatever against it, and the logic of it 
held such sway over me that it urged me on to 
further investigation of Catholic doctrine. The 
memorable scene of the Last Supper was a solemn 
reiteration of the same truth, when our Lord, taking 
a morsel of bread in His Hand, said, " This is my 
body." 

During the six weeks that I remained in Rome 
I was eager in this new search for light, and deter- 
mined to leave no means untried to get at the truth, 



354 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

while my friend was untiring in his efforts to help 
me. After those few weeks I never saw him again 
until I had been for nearly a year a Catholic, but 
he continued his assistance by letters. These letters 
and those of a Passionist monk, an American by 
birth, descent and education, were my greatest out- 
side helps, not only for sympathy and counsel, but 
in guidance as to what to read. 

What I gained during my short stay in Rome 
was of prime importance. I became engrossed in 
my study of Catholic doctrine, which unfolded it- 
self before my astonished gaze, so that at times 
there was almost the excitement of original dis- 
covery. The openness to investigation everywhere, 
and the logical explanation ready in answer to all 
puzzling questions, were perhaps what most sur- 
prised me. One bugbear after another disappeared. 
Where were the dark, secret corners which I had 
always pictured, into which no one was allowed to 
peep ? I never could find them, though clinging for 
a long time to the belief that if I searched enough, 
the warning barrier would be reached; but I have 
always looked in vain. 

There was a feeling of excitement during those 
weeks in Rome. How could it be otherwise ? The 
scales were dropping from my eyes. I was begin- 
ning to see that I had been feeding myself largely 
all my life long on absolute misstatements of Cath- 
olic beliefs. The Catholic Church was not what I 
had thought it^ but something so wholly different 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 355 

that my reverence increased in steady proportion to 
my knowledge. 

I returned to my own country in the late summer, 
and was singularly alone, never for sixteen months 
speaking to any Catholic on this subject which had 
become of such vital moment to me. I was shaken 
out of my old-time security. This mighty Catholic 
Church was confronting me with her claim of being 
the very Church that Christ had planted on earth, 
and given into the charge of St. Peter. Was it 
so ? I would at least find out what the Holy Scrip- 
tures had to tell me on the subject. I would read 
Christ's words afresh, as if I had never read them 
before, trying to forget all preconceived notions. 
I would do my best to get acquainted with St. 
Peter, St. John, and St. Paul, as living personal- 
ities, and see what they had to say about it. In this 
study of the Bible, alone and unaided, but read in 
this spirit, as if it were a new book, light began 
to stream in upon me. I soon saw that my old 
way of reading the Bible had been with distinct 
ideas beforehand as to what I should find there. 
The puzzling texts and apparent contradictions I 
had always forced to fit in with my conception of 
what God must be, as my ideal of perfect goodness. 
Truly such a standard by which to test divine truth 
is much like making God in man's image. 

Merely studying the Bible from this fresh point 
of view made it come home to me with the force 
of a new revelation. The claims that Christ ad- 



356 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

vanced definitely for Himself and that His disciples 
made for Him, had little in common with the old 
Unitarian basis of belief. He claimed to be God. 
His words come crowding to my mind. It is hard 
to decide which among the many to choose. How 
vivid that wonderful scene when Christ had told 
His followers that they had " seen the Father." 
Philip asks his Master " Lord show us the Father, 
and it sufiiceth us." Could such an extraordinary 
request have been made to a merely human 
creature? and the answer, instead of a rebuke to 
his effrontery, is a gentle reproach that he could 
have ever doubted; for with a tone of disappoint- 
ment, our Lord answered, and those glorious words 
ring out as clearly now as they did 1900 years ago : 
'' Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast 
thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, 
' Show us the Father.' " 

After trying to become acquainted with those who 
had actually sat at our Lord's feet — and with St. 
Paul, so close to that time — my next interest was 
to learn about the early Church, to find out if at 
the beginning the Christian Church and the Catholic 
Church were identical. What do we learn from 
Polycarp, who studied with St. John? and what 
does St. Irenaeus, his pupil, tell us, who reports 
from his teacher's lips the words which he had 
" heard John and the others say " ? Everything 
that I could glean of this early Church proved to 



K 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 357 

me that it was the CathoHc Church from the begin- 
ning. This is not only a matter of history but is 
written in stone thoughout the Catacombs. 

When once I grasped this idea that our Lord 
had founded a Church, and that He had promised 
to be with it to the end of the world, the victory 
was largely won. Every inquiry that I made went 
to prove that in the Catholic Church alone was His 
divine promise fulfilled. I worked away for 
months together, over one point and another — 
often questions of minor importance or matters of 
discipline. The confessional, for instance, was for 
a long time my chief stumbling-block; but when 
once I made up my mind that our Lord's Church 
was the Catholic Church from the beginning, even 
though it took some months before I could come 
meekly as a little child to our Lord's feet to be 
taught, I was then well on the right road. 

The Infallibility of the Pope was never a diffi- 
culty to me, but seemed the natural outcome of 
our Lord's promise. How else could His Church 
be unfaiHngly guided by His divine Presence unless 
there was a mouth-piece whose words human ears 
could hear? As in all civil governments, an ulti- 
mate tribunal is needed to prevent hopeless confusion 
(as, for example, in the United States a Supreme 
Court to interpret the Constitution), so if a Church 
has a divine Founder, it must be able to understand 
beyond the possibility of difference of opinion what 
that divine Head orders. 



358 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Step by step, irregular though they often were, 
I had worked my way along to Christmas-time, 
twenty months from that day in Rome when I was 
first awakened out of my old sense of security in 
my belief and the point was reached when I could 
find no argument against the claims of the Catholic 
Church; and yet I had come to a standstill. It 
seemed to me that I was no nearer believing; yet I 
had begun to long to believe. Suddenly the 
thought struck me, " Why do I never go to 
church ? " So on this Christmas day I went to 
Mass. I had no prayer book, and could not follow 
the service intelligently, and I came away dis- 
couraged. The next day I told a CathoHc friend 
of my difficulties, and from that time the way was 
made easy for me. She gave me a manual of 
prayers, and I never missed my Sunday Mass with 
her. My heart was crying out more and more for 
faith. Why could I not believe? My head was 
satisfied, but my heart seemed like a stone. A 
priest suggested my making an act of faith, but I 
always prefaced the *' O my God, I firmly believe," 
with — " I wish that I could truly say." 

I asked another priest if it would help me to gen- 
uflect before the Blessed Sacrament when I could 
not yet say actually that I believed that our Lord 
was there; and he advised against it, and that was 
consonant with my own feeling of what was 
sincere. 

Thus I went struggling along for three months 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 359 

more, pouring out my heart in prayer for faith; 
I was often sad and discouraged, wondering if I 
should never be able to believe. It was a time of 
keen suffering, but, I now realize, of most salutary 
discipline. For how many years had I not been 
completely satisfied with my own conception of 
divine truth? The blessed day was coming when 
I was to be thoroughly humbled, when I should 
kneel at our Lord's feet and ask Him to show me 
the way. I thought that I was asking Him then, 
but I was not as yet humble enough. God alone 
knew just how long I must kneel there pleading, 
imploring to see — before He would give me the 
light. ^ 

Passion Week arrived, and I was asked to hear a 
Jesuit priest preach at a convent. I was so igno- 
rant of Catholic ways that I did not even know 
that it was called a Retreat; but most gratefully I 
accepted this opportunity offered. What those 
days meant to me it is not possible to express fully. 
Most attentively I listened, hanging upon every 
word. I followed with deepest interest the services 
in the chapel. On the Thursday, with no especial 
warning, the full illumination came. My soul re- 
sponded, and I knew that I believed. The next day 
made me only the more sure; and when on Satur- 
day I went to early Mass, and every one in the 
chapel received our living Lord in the holy Sacra- 
ment of Communion, and I was left alone, the tears 

streamed from my eyes. I was desolate indeed. 
24 



360 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Never shall I forget the pain of it. How long must 
I remain outside? I wanted to be taken in at 
once. I knew that I was a Catholic at heart, and 
I did not wish to run the chance of dying outside 
the Church. 

Palm Sunday came, and with what new signifi- 
cance ! — and then Holy Week — my first Holy 
Week in truth. How eagerly I drank in new life, 
as if I had been thirsting and unsatisfied always. 
Seven weeks I was under instruction and carefully 
tested, and every day Catholic truth unfolded before 
me with greater force. 

Although happy as never before during those 
weeks, yet none the less is that testing-time a 
painful time. In my own heart I had taken the step 
and I was a Catholic, and I am sure that there is 
a special protecting grace over one at such a time, 
for it is certainly a period of weakness in compari- 
son to the strength which can only come through 
the Sacraments of the Church. 

No one but a convert can ever grasp adequately 
what it means to have been without the Sacra- 
ments, and then to have them; the contrast is far 
greater than that of a ship at the mercy of the 
winds and waves, anchorless and rudderless, and 
one with all sails set following unswervingly her 
desired course. The light of faith is there which 
shows the way; but one is not in port. 

I was quite prepared not to be conscious at the 
time of the full significance of each of the great 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA '361 

Sacraments of the Church, for I had been wisely 
warned not to expect to feel too much on those mo- 
mentous occasions, though to some persons God in 
His infinite mercy grants at such times great con- 
solation ; but never can I forget the peace and calm 
which were mine on that day when for the first time 
I could truly say " I am a Catholic," or the super- 
human joy, the consciousness that at last I was safe 
within God's own fold. 

This it is which enables me to say, not as in the 
Old days, " I think this and that " ; but now I knozv, 
for I have found the truth at last. 



ALICE RUTHERFURD, 

NEW YORK. 

Wife of Winthrop Rutherfurd, Esq., and daughter of the 
Hon, Levi Parsons Morton, late Vice President of the 
United States. 

MY STEPPING STONES TO THE CHURCH 

1. Supernatural graces. 

2. " Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will 
build my Church." 

3. Unchanging Doctrines. 

4. The Authority to Teach and to Preach. 

5. The grace derived through Jesus really pres- 
ent in the Blessed Sacrament. 

6. The Truth of the Church. 

7. The Devotion of its Children. 

8. The abounding graces given to Catholics. 

9. The satisfaction the heart receives through 
the channels flowing from the Cross into the Sacra- ^ 
ments. 

10. The enlightening of the understanding by 
the doctrines and teaching of the Church on all 
points of life — theological, religious and practical. 

11. The Paradise of the Soul. 



[362 



THE VERY REV. GEORGE M. SEARLE, 
D.D., A.M. 

SUPERIOR-GENERAL OF THE CONGREGATION OF ST. PAUL THE APOS- 
TLE. Graduated at Harvard, 1857 (A. M. i860) ; Assistant 
at the Dudley Observatory, Albany, discovered the asteroid 
Pandora ; successively instructor at the United States 
Naval Academy, and assistant at Harvard Observatory ; be- 
came a Catholic 1862; entered Paulist Congregation, 1868; 
ordained, 1871 ; taught for some years in the Paulist semi- 
nary, New York ; Professor of Mathematics and As- 
tronomy in the Catholic University of America, 1895-99; 
elected Superior-General of the Paulists, 1904. Author 
of Elements of Geography — Plain Facts for Fair Minds, 
and contributions to scientific journals and The Catholic 
World. 

My father was an American Unitarian, my 
mother English and a member of the Church of 
England. I was born in London, and, naturally 
enough, was baptized by a clergyman of the Es- 
tablished Church. 

Soon after, however, the family removed to this 
country, where, my father and mother both dying 
while I was a mere child, I was left in the charge 
of his relatives, all Unitarians, and attended their 
church up to the age of eighteen, with the exception 
of one year, during which my brother and myself 
were sent by our guardians to the Episcopal 
Church of the town, that we might have an 
363 



364 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Opportunity to follow the religion of our mother 
should we desire to do so. As our acquaintance 
was principally among Unitarians, we did not 
continue our attendance at the Episcopal Church 
beyond the prescribed time; as might, indeed, 
having been expected, though the intention of 
my uncle and aunt in sending us there was no 
doubt perfectly sincere. 

Leaving home shortly after completing my college 
course at Harvard, to engage in occupation else- 
where, I was provided with a letter, among others, 
to the Unitarian clergyman in the city where I was 
to live. The amount of my interest in Unitarianism 
for its own sake may be judged by the fact that 
I never delivered the letter, and have not even to 
this day any idea where the Unitarian church is 
situated in that city, or where its pastor lived. I 
suspect that the same would be the case with most 
young men belonging to Protestant denominations 
in going to a strange place, unless they wished by 
acquaintance in their church to obtain a start in busi- 
ness or society. As I had all the start in business 
I desired, and had very little inclination for society 
beyond that of my companions in work, this motive 
did not suggest itself. 

It was natural, however, to go to church some- 
where on Sunday, and the Catholic cathedral was 
the most attractive place. I attended High Mass, 
together with another young man in the same em- 
ployment as myself, and equally devoid, I imagine, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 365 

of any religious convictions. The music was fine, 
and it was principally for the sake of it that we were 
so regular in our attendance; for we always took 
a back seat, and were too far away to make much 
out of the ceremonies, even had we been interested 
in them. I saw, however, our late venerated Car- 
dinal — then a Bishop (McCloskey) — and heard 
him preach on several occasions, but probably paid 
little attention. I thought at one time of getting a 
book to assist in following the service, but never 
did so. The only reason was that I might know 
better what v/as going on, and thus occupy myself 
in a more intelligent way; I had not, as far as I 
can remember, any suspicion that the Catholic reli- 
gion could be the true one ; indeed, I did not believe 
there was any true religion, properly so called. I 
believed in God, but had no faith in revelation. 

I cannot see that this attendance at the cathedral 
had any effect whatever on my subsequent course, 
unless very indirectly, as may be seen later. I had 
always regarded the Catholic Church, not indeed 
with the positive prejudice and outrageously false 
notions which make many Protestants oppose it so 
vigorously, but with a kind of lofty disdain, or 
rather indifference; I considered it as an old fossil, 
teaching, if it taught anything, some false doctrines 
which modern enlightenment had long ago ex- 
ploded. It was to me like the Ptolemaic astronomy, 
a system which only the ignorant could accept. If 
the matter of religion had seemed to me of vital 



366 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

importance, of course I should have seen that false 
views about it must be very dangerous and of vastly- 
more consequence than false astronomical theories; 
but I really thought that all that was important or 
possible to know about God — in whose existence 
I fully believed — could be found out by a short 
course of reasoning; that I had already gone 
through with this, and that probably most other 
people had. 

Humanly speaking, it does not seem likely that 
I should have given the matter of religion any 
serious consideration, at this time at least, had it 
not been for one of my associates in work — 
strange to say, the only person, if I remember right, 
with whom I had ever been acquainted, in whom 
a belief in the Christian revelation as a real, posi- 
tive system w^as marked enough to excite interest 
and inquiry. He was a High-Churchman; Ritual- 
ism as it is now understood was in a very unde- 
veloped state, and the services at the little church 
which he attended had none of the attractions for 
the eye and ear which I found at the cathedral ; still 
he induced me to accompany him several times. 

I cannot trace the exact mental steps ' through 
which I passed from Unitarianism to the church of 
my mother. Morally and spiritually, I think a 
great change was produced by a sermon which I 
heard at this little church one evening on the text, 
" Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." I gave 
up the worldly ambition which had been, though 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA^ 367 

secretly, my principle motive for exertion, and de- 
termined to do everything for God's sake alone. 
The preacher was not a very eloquent man, and the 
sermon was probably in itself not an extraordinary 
one; but God's grace went with it, as it is contin- 
ually working everywhere. 

As to change of doctrine, it must be said that 
though without any belief in definite dogma, I had 
still retained the Protestant tradition as to the 
inspiration of the Bible, and began to get some light 
from reading it. Taking the Bible for a basis, it 
does not take very long to dispose of Unitarianism, 
as my brother, with whom I afterwards carried on a 
long controversy by letter, was quite willing to con- 
cede. The text which did more for me than any 
other was John xiv^ i : " Ye believe in God ; believe 
also in me ; " though, of course, I could not be sat- 
isfied intellectually of such a gxeat point as the di- 
vinity of our Lord without a great deal of examin- 
ation. My heart had accepted the truth, but the head 
had to say '' Nihil obsfat '' before I would move, 

I returned to the church (so to speak) of my 
baptism a month or so after the sermon of which 
mention has been made. Of course no reception 
was necessary; but I had to prepare for my First 
Communion, and therefore presented myself to the 
pastor of our little church to receive his advice and 
direction. He recommended principally the careful 
reading of the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, 
and I remember feeling very anxious till the Com- 



368 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

munion was made, on account of the fifty-fourth 
verse, which I understood as meaning that it was 
necessary for salvation. I was confirmed on the 
feast of the Annunciation, and received the rite 
alone, it not being the regular time. 

The second chapter of Ecclesiasticus, which was 
read, made a great impression on my mind. 

It may probably be imagined that, having got 
so far as to be a High-Churchman, the rest of the 
road was easy. It might have been, but I doubt 
it ; the " High " Church is rather a dangerous sub- 
stitute for the true religion. The friend of whom 
I have spoken, who had been the means of bringing 
me thus far, still, after thirty years, remains as he 
was then. At any rate, the way in which it actually 
came about was by my getting some experience as 
a Low-Churchman. Moving into the Massachusetts 
diocese shortly after my confirmation, I naturally 
selected as " High " a church as possible for my 
regular attendance, being aware of the prevailing 
tendency the other way, and of the " Low " views 
of the bishop. But to go to the " Church of the 
Advent " soon became too much trouble, especially 
in winter, for one living, as I did, several miles 
from Boston; so I finally gave up the attempt, and 
turned to the church of our own town, whose 
pastor was one of the most distinguished in the 
diocese for learning and for his ability in the pulpit. 

But he was certainly very '' Low," and some mat- 
ters in the parish fell into the hands of people even 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 369 

lower than himself. Many of us became very 
" EvangeHcal," and some of the young men, among 
whom were the pastor's son and myself, were roped 
— yes, really roped, against our will — by a set of 
pious ladies, into establishing a regular prayer-meet- 
ing. It was held on Sunday evenings in the little 
chapel, where we also taught Sunday-school, and 
on another evening in the week at the house of 
some religious person in the village, near where 
most of the Catholics lived. Though we tried no 
direct proselytism, I think we had some hope that a 
Romanist or two might " experience religion " by 
means of these village meetings. But how I, and 
I think most of the other young men — one excep- 
tion I believe there was — dreaded these perform- 
ances! The ladies, no doubt, liked them well 
enough; but then they were not required to take 
any active part. One of us, of course, always took 
charge, and that was not so bad ; for then you could 
get up your opening matter quietly at home, select 
your chapter and prepare your remarks, and spring 
them on the others. But imagine the misery of 
those others, of whom you would usually be one, 
who, especially if our great " exhorter " happened 
to be absent, might be called on at any moment to 
make some remarks suggested by the subject, or at 
least to lead in prayer. The last was not so diffi- 
cult ; for, after all, these extempore prayers fall into 
a regular rut, and one soon acquires a tolerable fa- 
cility in them ; but the miserable insincerity of pre- 



370 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

tending to speak to God, when the only real desire 
was to get through creditably, made one want to 
avoid them if any remarks could possibly be thought 
of. 

The whole matter became very sickening ; and the 
utter inefficacy of the system as a means to virtue 
and spiritual life was so evident that I became anx- 
ious to find some way to escape. I wanted some- 
thing that the soul could live on, but did not know 
where to turn for it. At this time two circum- 
stances, accidental, as it would seem, and not very 
notable in themselves, turned me in a Catholic di- 
rection. One was a trip made w^ith my old friend 
to the city where we had previously lived, on the 
occasion of which we made a visit to the cathedral 
which I had formerly attended, but 'which now in 
some way gave me other impressions than those of 
mere admiration and curiosity. My friend was 
enough of a Ritualist to genuflect on passing the 
altar ; and though I did not feel like doing that, yet 
the distinctness with which I remember it makes me 
think that the idea of the Real Presence made a 
strong impression on me. 

The second accident, if it may be so called, and 
the one which actually, or at least proximately, had 
more to do with my determination, was the reading 
of a book of Miss Frederika Bremer's, in which she 
gave an account of a visit to Rome, and of her there 
making some examination of Catholic doctrine. 
She mentioned the Catechism of the Council of 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 37I 

Trent as a book which had been put into her hands. 
I made up my mind to get this book and see what 
the Roman Church had to say for itself. Anything 
seemed better than the miserable position to which 
I had been brought. So I got the book. It was 
a great point to have something definite to ask 
for, and up to this time I had not even known the 
name of a single work treating on Catholic doc- 
trine. I did not know anything even of anti-Cath- 
olic controversy ; the whole field was simply a blank. 
Many, perhaps most Protestants are, I imagine, in 
that position. 

I read the book at night, after everybody else had 
gone to bed. It may seem strange to say it, but 
what surprised me was its " Evangelical '' tone. I 
had a general idea that the Roman Church placed 
the means of salvation in works and outward ob- 
servances ; but here I found the Blood of Christ and 
His merits put forward as the one price of our re- 
demption, as forcibly as in any book, I had ever 
read or any sermon I had ever heard. What added 
much to its weight was that I felt sure this was 
really Catholic teaching. Controversial books 
might be traps to catch Protestants, in which the 
genuine Roman doctrine was manipulated or partly 
concealed; but here was a real official book, meant 
for Catholics themselves. 

However, I got controversial books, plenty of 
them, and read them in the same way. I think I 
got out of the prayer-meetings before this; but I 



372 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

was still a communicant and taught Sunday-school, 
and, as I did not know how the thing would turn 
out, it was necessary to be careful. I did not say 
or teach anything that I did not believe, but of 
course kept quiet about what was going on in my 
own mind. 

The getting of the books was a matter of some 
embarrassment. Donahoe's book-store was in 
rather a frequented part of the city, and people 
who knew me were likely to pass that way; 
so before going in I would take a good look up and 
down the street to assure myself that the coast was 
clear, then walk into the store and make my selec- 
tion. But the question then was how to get out; 
one could not look up and down the street from 
inside, and might stumble on some unwelcome 
friend at the very doorstep. Whether any such 
saw me come out I cannot tell, for I never ven- 
tured to look on these occasions, but plunged ahead 
and took my chances. 

It did not appear that I was found out during the 
year that I pursued this course of quiet reading. 
But at last my convictions became so strong, at least 
of the falsity of Protestantism, that I could not con- 
tinue to teach in Sunday-school; and then some- 
thing was suspected. Shortly after I gave up at- 
tendance at church, and told some persons confi- 
dentially of the course my mind had taken, but I 
tried to avoid general discussion and remark. This 
was a critical time; for the alternative now pre- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 373 

sented was between the Catholic Church and the 
abandoment of Christianity as a revelation alto- 
gether. I had followed the historical road, as it 
may be called, and had seen plainly enough by this 
time that Christianity, if it was anything more than 
mere human speculation, was Catholicity. And 
then there was for awhile a time in which I lost 
interest in the question; how I recovered it, other- 
wise than by the grace of God, I do not know. I 
was advised to consult my own pastor and other 
clergymen. Strange to say, none of them defended 
their own position with much vigor. My pastor 
lent me Chillingworth, but also Moehler's '' Sym- 
bolism/' ; the clergyman of the Unitarian church 
and another whom I consulted, both men of dis- 
tinguished ability, contented themselves with glit- 
tering generalities; another, a neighbor of mine, an 
excellent and most amiable man, lent me the histor- 
ical works of Eusebius and Socrates. None at- 
tempted any real discussion. 

All this time I had never spoken to a single Cath- 
olic on the subject of religion, and hardly knew 
one to whom I could speak. It never occurred to 
me to go to a priest till after sixteen months 
from my first start, when my mind was made up as 
far as it could be ; by which I mean that, though I 
did not believe, I saw no reason for not believing. 
The argument was as complete, as mere argument 
could be, to prove the divine construction of the 
wonderful edifice at the door of which I sat wait- 



374 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ing; but practically I was not quite convinced or 
ready to enter. The grace of God was what I 
needed; and it came through reading some of the 
" Annals of the Propagation of the Faith," I think. 
It moved me to act, to go to a priest and ask to 
be received. The veil was still between my eyes 
and the truth as Catholics see it; what might be 
behind that veil I could not tell; there was no way 
of telling but by trying; it was, as Cardinal New- 
man says, '' a leap in the dark," but one that reason, 
conscience, and the voice of God required. It must 
come in this way, I think, to all converts who have 
the common Protestant traditions. 

I rang the priest's door-bell; he himself came to 
the door. " I want," I said, '' to be a Catholic." 
I thought that was all; that he would do what was 
needed to make me one without delay. But of 
course he put me under instruction ; gave me books, 
which I already was pretty well filled up with ; but his 
instructions, his answers to my questions, did more 
good than all the books he could have furnished. 
But still the old practical obstacle remained till the 
very end : " What if the priest himself be insincere? 
how do I know but that some things are being 
kept from me which will come out when it is too 
late?" Modern miracles made a special difficulty, 
not one that was going to turn me back now, for 
my mind was made up to go behind that veil and 
see. But did Catholics really believe in them? I 
was almost afraid to ask. The miracle of St. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 375 

Januarius was a thing I had to bring up, and I 
half-expected to hear that, at least, dismissed, as a 
superstition. And then did Father — himself 
really abstain from meat on Friday, or was this 
only something palmed off on the people ? Strange 
to say, even after I was received, though very 
strict about the matter, I was shame faced about it, 
and did not know whether Catholics were really ex- 
pected to be so. 

I was baptized conditionally on the Feast of the 
Assumption, 1862, having been under instruction 
about six weeks. I had been an Episcopalian 
about three years and a half, and was a little over 
twenty-three years old. It took me a little time to 
get into Catholic ways and practices, but from the 
day of my reception till now, doubt of the Catholic 
religion in any point, small or great, has seemed as 
impossible, unreasonable, and absurd as doubt about 
the truths of algebra or geometry. Religion, in- 
stead of being a mere matter of speculation or of 
enthusiasm, which one must not investigate too 
closely, has been ever since then to me the most cer- 
tain, as well as infinitely the most important, of all 
the sciences. 



25 



MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL, 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 

Author of " The House of Egremont," " The Fortunes of 
Fifi," etc. 

In the old country house, the Sheher, in Gloucester 
County, Virginia, where I grew up, there was a 
typical eighteenth century library. It had been 
partly selected for my great-grandfather by Thomas 
Jefferson, when he was minister to France. The 
eighteenth Century philosophers were all well rep- 
resented in it, and also much English history, of M 
the period when histor}^ was merely the expression 
of individual prejudices. 

Everything in this library was strongly anti- 
Catholic. Contrary to this, however, my father 
and mother had much" respect for the Catholic 
Church, my mother being especially inclined that 
way. I was allowed great liberty in reading, and 
from a very early age I read these books, which, 
of course, I only half understood. I soon noticed, 
how^ever, that the Catholics were always represented 
as being in the wrong, in every religious and po- 
litical collision. This seemed to my childish mind 
to be unjust, and I began to have a kind of sym- 
pathy with the Catholics. 

376 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 377 

When I was about fourteen, with a very pre- 
cocious mind, I came across " Macaulay's Essays," 
which I devoured. Macaulay's denunciation of the 
Anglican Church made a deep impression upon me, 
as my family were all nominally Episcopalians, 
and my associations were solely with that com- 
munion. The two essays — one on Von Ranke's 
" History of the Popes," and the other on Henry 
Hallam's " Constitutional History " — suddenly 
gave me a new view of religious questions. I be- 
gan to see that the Church which Macaulay said 
would be in full vigor " when the traveller from 
New Zealand, shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, 
sit on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch 
the ruins of St. Paul's," was an enormous and liv- 
ing fact. I also began to appreciate dimly that in 
my own country the steady advance in education 
and enlightenment was closely followed by a corres- 
ponding advance in Catholicism. 

Then, after Macaulay, I made acquaintance with 
Thackeray, whose leanings toward Catholicism in 
his later life were so marked as to give rise to the 
report that he died a Catholic. Certain it is, he had 
an extraordinary knowledge of Catholic ritual and 
language, which could only have been acquired by 
often attending Catholic worship; indeed, he is 
said to have habitually frequented Catholic 
Churches when he was on the Continent It will 
be remarked that Thackeray seemed to- have a 
grudge against the Anglican Church, and like An- 



378 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

thony Trollope, he commonly made the Anglican 
Clergy in his books appear as being the most ridicu- 
lous, if not the most odious, of men. Witness the 
Reverend Charles Honeyman, in '* The Newcomes," 
etc. His favorite characters, if his art permitted, 
were likely to turn up in Catholic Cathedrals, or 
even to be Catholics, while Father Holt, the Jesuit, 
is a most sympathetic portrait. 

After having readily imbibed from Thackeray, as 
from Macaulay, his admiration and sympathy for 
Catholicism, I read Thackeray's noble tribute to the 
Catholic Church — " the stately structure of eigh- 
teen centuries, the mighty and beautiful Roman 
Catholic Church." The effect upon a young mind 
of these splendid tributes, from two great masters of 
English literature, may be imagined. I began to 
make inquiries about the church and to read all 
I could find on the subject, from my fifteenth to my 
eighteenth year. I asked Protestants many puz- 
zling questions, to which they could give me no an- 
swer, such as the meaning of Christmas — " Christ's 
Mass " — which dated back into the shadow and 
traditions of the first Century after Christ. None 
of these Protestant friends could explain to me why 
they celebrated Christ's Mass without a Mass, and 
why the same prayer book which contained a spe- 
cial service for Christmas, also contained a declara- 
tion that the Mass was blasphemous and idolatrous. 
These questions, from Catholic books and teachings, 
received a prompt and logical answer. Thus I 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 379 

found myself a Catholic, by the operations of my 
own mind, under God; and when I announced my 
intention, at the age of eighteen, of joining the 
Catholic Church, I had never even conversed with a 
priest. 

I now put myself for a few weeks, under ecclesi- 
astical instruction, and was then received into the 
Church. 

The spirit of inquiry which made me a Catholic 
has never left me, and from that day to this I have 
been a constant reader of Speculative Philosophy 
and the history of religion. In the course of this 
reading, I have grown stronger in the Catholic 
faith. It has proved, according to my lights, to be 
the one practical system of philosophy which gives 
men mental peace, and which has, from the begin- 
ning, fed and clothed the poor, succored the orphan, 
taught the ignorant, and reformed the sinner. I 
have great respect for all Christian bodies; but, in 
their practical aspect, the Catholic Church as com- 
pared with the other Christian religions of the 
world, is like a regular army, ready for service 
anywhere, to a local militia. 

I have observed that since the great schism of 
three hundred years ago, that as education and en- 
lightenment advance, so the Catholic Church ad- 
vances. In England, on the accession of Queen 
Victoria, 38 per cent, of the people of England 
could not read or write, and the Catholic Church 
was under prohibition. Now, when the number of 



380 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

illiterates is very small, schools have multiplied and 
the whole Catholic hierarchy is completely estab- 
lished, as it was before the schism. 

In America, the Church has had no such obstacles 
to contend against, and its progress has been still 
more rapid. The old superstition that the Catholic 
Church and liberty could not dwell together has 
been triumphantly refuted. It has placed no bar 
upon the most candid investigation, and for my- 
self, having always been an investigator and rea- 
soner to the extent of 'my abilities, I am and shall 
remain, a Roman Catholic. 



HENRIETTA CHANNING DANA SKINNER, 

BOSTON, MASS. 

Daughter of the late Richard Henry Dana, Jr., and author of 
" Espiritu Santo," " Heart and Soul," etc. 

It was a small thing that first started me on the 
path to Rome — a very small thing, indeed — no 
larger than a postage stamp. In fact, it was a 
postage stamp! My older sister was an ardent 
collector, and had many rare examples. One page 
of her book was devoted to " The Papal States." 
I was about twelve years of age when, in looking 
at this page, I noticed the papal arms and asked of 
my father the significance of the crossed keys. He 
explained that they referred to the claim of the 
Papacy to be founded on Christ's charge to Peter 
" On this rock I will build My Church, and I will 
give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven." 
I was so struck with the explanation that I im- 
mediately looked up the episode in the Gospels. 
I can recall now how the thought that the Church 
of Rome might perhaps be the historic fulfilment of 
those solemn promises almost took my breath away, 
and I turned to my father and cried '' But what if 
the claim is true?" He was alarmed at the im- 
pression it made on me and hastened to give me 
the usual arguments — that the Eastern and Angli- 

381 



382 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

can churches denied that any more authority was 
given to Peter than was afterwards conferred on 
all the other Apostles ; and that " the corruption of 
doctrine and morals in the Roman Church " put out 
of the question any claim to Divine foundation and 
guidance. I was to find later that this assertion 
of " the corruption of Rome " was insisted upon 
whenever any line of reasoning seemed to lead 
Rome-ward. '* As Rome is corrupt, therefore no 
argument, however plausible, which leads to Rome 
can be sound, for a good tree cannot bring forth 
evil fruit." 

I was brought up in an atmosphere of religious 
controversy. My father and grandfather were con- 
verts to the Protestant Episcopal Church from or- 
thodox Congregationalism. My aunt, Miss Char- 
lotte Dana, was one of the early converts to the 
Catholic Church in Boston. She loved to say that 
she had come into the Church before Newman had 
made it the fashion. My mother was a Presby- 
terian. Nearly all of our relatives were either Uni- 
tarians or Congregationalists, while among our near- 
est neighbors and best friends were Irvingites and 
Swedenborglans. With all of these we discussed 
religion freely, except with our Catholic aunt. We 
were strictly forbidden to speak of religion or go 
to a Catholic service with her. My father was a 
strong High Churchman in his principles and was 
a founder of the church of the Advent — the pioneer 
of ritualism in Boston. I myself was confirmed at 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 383 

this church in my fourteenth year. Later in the 
same year we went to Europe for a prolonged stay. 
The first Catholic church I ever entered was the 
cathedral at Brussels. There was a low Mass 
going on at the time and I watched it with some 
curiosity. But, having no idea what it was all 
about and hearing no words, I noticed only the 
many genuflections, the constant passing back and 
forth, the strange and apparently arbitrary and 
meaningless gestures and movements of the cele- 
brant, and it all seemed to me as so much mum- 
mery. At the same time I recall that when passing 
a certain chapel where a lamp was burning (which 
I now know to have been the chapel of the Blessed 
Sacrament), I obeyed a strange impulse to follow 
the example of the passers-by and make a reverent 
genuflection before the Altar. It was my first act 
of Catholic worship, however ignorant and imper- 
fect. 

That year and the following I spent in Germany, 
where my most intimate friends were Catholics. 
I went twice with them to church. Once it was a 
low Mass, which impressed me the same way as be- 
fore. The second time was Tenebrse, but it was 
.a very simple service, intoned by the clergy, with- 
out organ or choir. My curiosity was satisfied, and 
at the age of fifteen I had decided that the Church 
of Rome had no attraction for me! 

The third winter, that of 1873-74, was spent 
at the Convent of the Assumption in Paris. I was 



384 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

then sixteen. My parents had stipulated that the 
nuns should not try to influence my religious con- 
victions, that I should be allowed to sleep late, 
mornings, and not attend the daily Mass; that on 
Sundays I should take my own prayer-book to 
chapel, and that when religious instruction was 
given the pupils I should follow the class that was 
studying the Ten Commandments, as least likely to 
offer any doctrines that I was not in accord with. 
I remained at the convent eleven months. At first 
I w^as horribly homesick. The austere simplicity of 
the school, the regimental discipline, the lack of 
privacy — for we were never alone — filled me with 
dismay. I felt no attraction towards the religious 
side, as I did not understand it. If any of the nuns 
were especially kind to me I fancied they were 
trying to convert me and I shrank from them. I 
little thought that in a few months it would seem 
the dearest home on earth to me; for it was the 
home of the Blessed Sacrament. Every day from 
the earliest Mass in the morning till after Compline 
there was solemn Exposition and Adoration. 
Every afternoon at quarter of five the pupils all 
filed into chapel for Benediction, I among them. 
What it was all about I did not know. The French 
name of the service, " Salut," conveyed no idea, and 
true to their promises the nuns made no attempt 
to explain it to me. It seemed to be another kind 
of mummery, that was all. At Mass on Sundays 
I took my Episcopal prayer-book and read the Com- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 385 

munion service, sometimes adding the Thirty-Nine 
Articles, to fortify myself against any possible in- 
cipient leaning towards Popery! But I knew 
enough of the Catholic Faith to realize that those 
about me believed in Transubstantiation, and I 
gradually came to feel a certain solemnity and awe 
at the moment of the Elevation. It was many 
months, however, before it dawned on me that the 
same Host I had learned to reverence at the Eleva- 
tion was held up before me at the daily Benediction. 
It was like a sudden illumination. Yet the first effect 
of my new belief instead of drawing me to the Cath- 
olic Church, was to make me an ardent Ritualist. 
I fought against the idea of submission to Rome, 
but planned to throw myself eagerly into the Ritual- 
istic movement and help to restore the Anglican 
and Episcopal Churches to the ancient Catholic faith 
and practices which they had undoubtedly been 
wrong in abandoning at the time of the so-called 
Reformation. The English Church should be 
" Catholicized but not Romanized," and if there 
was any doubt about Orders we should get them 
from the Eastern Churches and not from Rome. 
I was all aglow with loyalty and enthusiasm. But 
there was a leaven working. What Catholic de- 
votions, what faith in the Real Presence, what the 
lovely influence of the nuns failed to accomplish 
was brought about in the apparent safety, neutrality 
and dryness of the advanced class in Catechism, 
studying the Ten Commandments according to the 



386 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Council 
of Trent. Here, at every step, teaching and defin- 
ing in morals as well as faith, and commanding in 
matters of discipline that were not of faith but of 
obedience, here I found the Bark of Peter, steering 
with divine authority and infallible guidance across 
the stormy seas of sin and heresy ! Here were the 
Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, here was the 
Rock against which the gates of Hell should not 
prevail! Not suddenly, but very, very slowly, I 
came to realize that, not in the Anglican Church 
with orders denied by all but herself and rejected 
Mass and Sacraments — not even in the national 
Orthodox Churches of Greece and Russia in spite 
of their Apostolic Orders and Sacraments — was 
I to find the Church that was universal, and, above 
all, One. The keynote of unity and authority was 
Rome! 

As soon as I saw where I was being led I felt 
in honor bound to let my father know. I was im- 
mediately withdrawn from the convent and taken 
to England, where I was shown the cathedrals and 
particularly the ritualistic churches, like those of All 
Saints', Margaret street, London, and the church 
of the Cowley Fathers at Oxford, where I was put 
under the instruction of Fathers Benson and Riv- 
ington, who both had long talks with me on the 
Anglican and Roman positions. The following 
year we returned to Boston. There my father laid 
down certain conditions which he required me to 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 387 

observe faithfully for three years. His manner 
was kindly: he said he did not wish to persecute 
me, but that he could not consent to my becoming a 
Roman Catholic while I was under age, until he 
was sure that I was not being led away by undue 
influence or by the romantic enthusiasm of inex- 
perienced youth. For three years I was to cease all 
correspondence with Catholic friends, I was never 
to mention to my Catholic aunt or to anyone my 
desire to enter the Catholic Church, I was to give 
up all Catholic books, pictures, medals, etc., in my 
possession, I was never to go inside of a Catholic 
Church, but must attend the Episcopal church with 
my family, I was to be instructed by Protestant 
clergymen that my father should appoint, I was to 
read conscientiously such books as he or they should 
indicate, and I was to finish my education at Prot- 
estant schools. If at the end of three years I had 
fulfilled these conditions honorably and still wished 
to become a Catholic he would no longer oppose 
me. I pleaded vainly for a test of one year, or 
two at the most. He was unrelenting. Had I 
known then, as I came to know later, all that the 
Church is to her children, all that the Sacraments 
mean to them I would never have consented to so 
long a test. But before one is a Catholic it is like 
taking a leap in the dark. The old prejudices die 
hard. Up to the last moment there is a kind of 
vague terror that it may all turn out a miserable mis- 
take. Two things only stood out clearly and sus- 



388 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

tained my spirit during this trial : trust in the Keys 
of Peter, and hunger for the Blessed Sacrament. 

The first year my family took the course of 
simply ignoring altogether my religious desires, 
and I went with them regularly to the Church of 
the Advent, then under the charge of the Cowley 
Fathers, and already very ritualistic. The second 
year, my father put me under the instruction of 
one of the clergy of the Advent, now a bishop. He 
began by telling me at once that I must look upon 
my attraction towards Rome as a temptation of the 
Devil, and asked me to kneel down before him and 
take a solemn oath never to become a Roman 
Catholic, and never to make any inquiries toward 
that end. He promised that I should then find re- 
lief from the temptation. Naturally I refused to 
do anything so narrow and arbitrary, though I 
know of many persons who have unfortunately 
taken that oath. He then urged me to go to their 
communion, but I told him frankly that I did not 
regard it as a real sacrament or look upon him as a 
real priest, and that I could receive no grace from 
such an act. Fnding that he must convince me, he 
wasted no time on side issues but went at once to 
the heart of the matter, and attacked the doctrine 
of Papal authority and infallibility. On all other 
points of Catholic doctrine he declared that he 
could agree with me. I listened to what he had to 
say and I read the books he gave me, though it 
was a weariness of the spirit to do so. But through 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 389 

all the mazes of argument, two things always rose 
up before my mind : on the one hand Christ's prom- 
ises to His Church, His prayer for its visible unity. 
His charge to Peter; on the other hand the historic 
papacy. Had either existed without the other it 
would be easy to explain away, but as long as they 
stood together — prophecy and fulfilment, each the 
complement of the other — they were the very 
foundation of Christianity. 

My father then decided that I was receiving too 
much sympathy from Ritualism, and the third win- 
ter I was placed under the instruction of a bishop 
of Low Church views, who employed the usual 
arguments of the ultra-Protestant position. Be- 
side those of the Ritualists, these arguments served 
as an object lesson in the inconsistencies tolerated 
within the Episcopalian fold. 

I need not refer to the pressure brought to bear 
from various sources as the end of my trial drew 
near. This was only natural and may be taken 
for granted in the case of every convert. 

When the three years were up my father de- 
clared himself satisfied that I had fulfilled his con- 
ditions honorably. He had but one hope left — 
that was, that in attending Catholic churches and 
coming in contact with Catholics I might be dis- 
appointed and disillusionized, and be glad to re- 
turn to the religion of my family. 

(Note. I am glad to say that both my parents 
soon ceased to entertain these hopes, and in later 



390 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

years even told me that they would not bring me 
back if they could, as they were convinced that I 
derived more happiness and consolation from my 
religion than they got from their own.) 

I was instructed in Boston for my reception into 
the Church by the Jesuit, Father Edward Holker 
Welch, a convert who, as a young man had studied 
law in my father's office. My father himself took 
me to him for instruction, and I was to be received 
on the Feast of the Annunciation, 1878. But be- 
fore the appointed time I was called at an hour's 
notice to Chicago by the illness of a married sister. 
I arrived there knowing absolutely no one, but 
armed with a letter to the Jesuit missionary. Father 
Verdin, who gave me conditional baptism in the 
Church of the Holy Family, on March 27, a 
stranger from the congregation standing for me. 
I afterwards made many delightful Catholic friends 
during the three months I remained in Chicago. 
I was prepared for my first Communion by the 
Ladies of the Sacred Heart at their North Side 
convent, and was confirmed and given communion 
by Bishop Foley on the first Friday of April, 1878, 
Miss Eliza Allen Starr acting as my sponsor. 

Seeing the part that the Keys of Peter played in 
my conversion perhaps it was no mere coincidence 
that I had been born on one of the feast days of the 
holy Apostle. 



KL.S., 

NEW YORK CITY. 

I have been a Catholic now, for thirty-eight 
years ; and the thought that is oftenest in my mind 
is that out of all my family on either side, there is 
no account of an earlier conversion ; and I am filled 
with gratitude to God for the favor, even though 
I have surely done nothing to warrant the selection. 

After the lapse of so many years the incidents of 
my conversion are not vivid in my recollection, 
with the exception of a few that were out of the 
ordinary. 

I hardly know how to characterize the special 
variety of Protestantism in which I was reared. 
My ancestors on my mother's side were Quakers; 
but through the accidents of life most of them 
finally landed in the Episcopal Church. My 
father's family was Dutch Reformed ; and my Sun- 
day-school education was had under those aus- 
pices. I knew nothing of doctrine or dogma, and 
was never taught any. The Bible and only the 
Bible, was the text-book, the end and aim of all we 
ought to know. In a vague sort of way, but with 
the utmost fervor I grew to believe it contained all 
that was needed. I presume I ranked with the 
every day Protestant, found in every denomination, 

26 391 



392 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

who differs in small particulars from any other 
Protestant, no matter of what denomination, but 
who agrees with every other Protestant in the im- 
portant particular of disaffection, to give it no more 
violent name, towards that unaccountable infliction, 
the Roman Catholic Church. 

I\Iy earliest recollection is of being taken into a 
church — St. Joseph's, in Sixth avenue. New York. 
I do not remember who took me. But it was often 
told me W'hat a good nurse I had, although she was 
one of the foolishly devout kind and thought of 
nothing but her duty to her church — was forever 
going to church and spending her money there. 
When I heard this it meant nothing to me, but 
now as a Catholic, I know that her prayers were di- 
rected to heaven in my behalf and without doubt 
were heard and were among the causes of my con- 
version. 

I cannot say that I had any concern whatever 
as regards the Roman Catholic Church, for many 
years; nor had I any thought of it except to as- 
cribe to it as I was taught, all those bad things with 
which every one is so familiar, and which, indeed, 
are not believed except by the utterly ignorant. 
Nothing of interest happened, but once, when, with 
my wife and a Catholic lady I visited the church 
of St. Ignatius in Baltimore, and we three walked 
up a side aisle, I going whither I was led, not 
knowing or caring for the holy place I was in. 
The Catholic lady and my wife knelt before an 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 393 

altar; but I stood stark, rigid, frozen, feeling it 
my duty to cast as far as I could by my outward 
demeanor, a rebuke upon such idolatry. Our Cath- 
olic friend lived to learn, later, of our conversion; 
but we never saw her again, leaving the city a few 
months later for good. Now she is in that place 
of refreshment, Hght and peace where she rejoices, 
so I believe, in her instrumentality in bringing about 
our conversion. 

In the course of time I had become a member 
of the Episcopal Church, of the Low Church kind. 
This was abundant in my youth; in fact I do not 
recall anything that approached the so-called An- 
glican Church in the United States, of the sort 
called by some. Ritualistic, and by others, the Catho- 
lic Church, a branch of the True Church. The 
" Half Way House," in Hudson street, a High 
Church, from which so many Catholics have gradu- 
ated, was not ornate in its worship, made nO' pretence 
not to be Protestant; and Dr. Seabury's, in Four- 
teenth street, the highest of the high churches, which 
the unseated Bishop Onderdonk attended, was cer- 
tainly both plain in its worship and avowedly Protes- 
tant. But I drifted toward the Low Church variety 
of Episcopalianism that had its headquarters at St. 
George's, in Stuyvesant Square, the Rev. Dr. An- 
thon being its rector at the time. I was also fond 
of the service at Dr. Muhlenburg's, the Church of 
the Holy Communion. 

Later when the Rev. Dr. Ewer introduced his red 



394 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

cassocked corps of altar boys, and the Church of St. 
Alban in New York began the saying and singing 
of " mass/' I attended both these places and came 
away fully satisfied that one might change his 
clothing, and still be the same man nevertheless. 

So I remained during my early manhood and our 
early married life. After Baltimore, we came to 
Brooklyn, where I joined a Low Church, doing my 
best, and sparing no pains, to assist in the work 
usual in that following. I was fairly successful and 
might have continued not to have any special interest 
in the discredited Roman Catholic Church, if it had 
not been for a sermon preached in my hearing, 

by the Rev. Mr. C , a pleasant speaker, of the 

extreme Evangelical pattern that suggests personal 
infallibility. He touched, incidentally, upon the 
interest which was then beginning to be taken in 
Roman Catholic affairs, and the curiosity that was 
invading pious Protestant circles, to learn for one's 
self what that Church taught. He said many hard 
things I do not now recall, and dropped the subject 
with the very familiar lines of Pope : 

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As to be hated, needs but to be seen; 
Yet seen too oft, familar with its face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 

In all my life, with all the bad things said against 
the Roman Catholic Church, that had resulted in 
my disaffection towards it, (almost my hatred of 
it), I had never yet heard such a characterization. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 395 

It seemed at once to rule it out of any consideration 
except as the ally of hell. It rankled in my mind. 
It seemed to me that for once the Church was the 
" under dog," and was entitled to sympathy. I 
never could quite get into the habit of classifying 
Catholics as bad simply because they were Catho- 
lics ; and yet if my reverend preacher was to be be- 
lieved, that was the entire truth — the Catholics 
themselves, priests or laymen, might be good; but 
the horrible organization known as the Church, 
m.ust be as fatal to the repose of immortal souls, as 
the domain of hell itself. So I risked the threat- 
ened danger of a compromise with the Monster 
Vice, and undertook to find the truth. I disclaimed 
any exterior aid; in fact I kept my own counsel as 
far as I could. I felt competent to decide for my- 
self, and I did. After a few years I became a Cath- 
olic and my wife followed me. By the grace of 
God I remain one here, and my wife is one in Para- 
dise. 

This is my story, divested of the minor incidents 
of becoming convinced of the truth of Catholic 
Dogma. I regard that as unimportant. If the 
Church is of God, nothing that the Church pro- 
pounds can be aught but from God, and must be 
believed. The very first question to be settled is — 
have I the right of private judgment or have I not, 
in matters of faith ? And the next is — what ec- 
clesiastical body in all the world has the deposit 
of faith, given to it by Almighty God? When 



396 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

those questions are settled, as settled they are, in 
favor of the Roman Catholic Church, there remains 
nothing for me to do but to say — "I believe, help 
Thou mine unbelief," to that hierarchy that has the 
precious deposit, insured by the promise of Christ 
to remain with his Church to the consummation of 
the world. 

So then, with this spirit, I was not seriously 
troubled about the necessity of assenting to Roman 
Catholic dogma. Every dogma became to me like 
an arithmetical problem. Two and two make four 
and not three or five or any other quantity. So 
with the evident and incontrovertible facts relating 
to every dogma, there followed no conclusion but 
the one which those facts indicated and which the 
Church adopts. 

So, too, in this little statement of my conversion 
I believe it quite unnecessary to tell the petty story 
of my difficulties over dogma. Many a mind sur- 
renders intellectually to the claims of the church 
and still will not openly assent. What, then, is 
needed? Why, the grace of God. Nothing is ac- 
complished without it. The Faith is not gained 
without it, is not held without it; and without it 
heaven is not reached. When you have it say, 
" My God, suffer me not to lose this precious gift." 



WILLIAM H. SLOAN, ESQ., 

CITY OF MEXICO, MEXICO. 

The writer of the following sketch was born in Fort 
Washita, Indian Territory, Sept. 4, 1843. His father. Surgeon 
Wm. James Sloan, was an officer in the U. S. army. Young 
Sloan was left at an early age to struggle with poverty and 
hardship in the new territories of the far West, and grew to 
manhood with little opportunity to secure even a common 
school education. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, he attended 
school for awhile under the Christian Brothers, and always 
spoke of them with affection. At the breaking out of the 
Civil War he went with his widowed mother to Kansas City, 
Mo., and there acquired a knowledge of the printer's trade. 
He served at the same time in the " Home Guard," a military 
organization formed for the protection of the city against the 
possible attacks of Confederate forces. He afterwards re- 
moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, and in the closing year of 
the war enlisted in the Seventeenth Kansas Volunteer Infantry, 
a regiment that was mustered out after five months of service. 
He now began to long for an education, and after a prepa- 
ration of a few months, during which time he united with the 
Baptist church, he entered the University of Rochester, N. Y., 
in 1866. In order to provide the means necessary for his 
schooHng in that institution, he worked at night as a com- 
positor on one of the city dailies. He received aid also from 
his mother, and from an educational society that contributed 
to the training of young men who sought an education for 
the ministry. He graduated in 1870 with honors, married a 
young woman who is still his wife, and entered the Rochester 
theological seminary to fit himself to be a preacher of the 
Gospel. A year or two later he was ordained to the ministry 
in Walworth, N. Y., while still pursuing his studies in 
Rochester. In 1873 he settled at Marion, N. Y., where he 
remained until the spring of 1875, when he went out as a 

397 



398 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

missionary to Burmah, assuming charge there of the pub- 
lishing house belonging to the Baptist sect. His wife's health 
failed, and he sent her back to America, with three little 
children that had been born to them. He followed a year 
later, and during the voyage home was shipwrecked on Cape 
]\Iatapan, Greece, when all the passengers but himself were 
lost. He visited Italy, and with other Americans was received 
in audience by Pope Pius IX, who congratulated him upon 
his escape from the sea. Rejoining his family in Rochester, 
N. Y., in 1878, he was immediately called to the pastorate of 
the Baptist church in Canadaigua, N. Y., where he remained 
only a year or so, and was then called to Albion, N. Y. Here 
he spent five years. In 1884 he was sent as a missionary to 
Mexico, where he has labored ever since, with the exception 
of four years spent as a pastor in Toledo, Ohio. 

Mr. Sloan was the General Superintendent of Baptist work 
in Mexico, and during the twenty-two years of that service 
he erected four churches, published a newspaper in the Span- 
ish language, and was the author of a number of books. His 
Concordance to the Holy Scriptures is, perhaps, the most 
complete work of its kind in any language. A volume for 
the use of students for the ministry, prepared during his 
leisure hours, is used in several Protestant theological schools 
as a text-book. Since leaving the Protestant ministry and 
uniting with the Catholic church, he has continued to reside 
with his wife and a little grandchild in the City of Mexico, 
where he has engaged in secular pursuits. 

My life has been so full of movement and ac- 
tivity, subjected to so many and varied experiences, 
that it is not easy for me to state the character and 
origin of the different influences that led me to 
abandon the drifting forces of Protestantism and 
adopt the stable faith of the Catholic Church. But 
there are some things that stand out very clearly 
in my experience that may be of benefit to those 
v^ho peruse these pages, and who, with single eye, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 399 

may be looking for the truth as it is in Christ. 
May the dear Lord, our Heavenly Father, help such, 
as He helped me, to find rest and peace in the 
Church that He founded. 

In my early years I saw something of Roman 
Catholicism, while living in the Far West, and a 
sense of gratitude for some school training that 
I received for a short time in Santa Fe, New 
Mexico, begot within me a desire to join that 
Church ; but the feeling soon passed away, and after 
I had an opportunity to enter a Protestant mission- 
ary school I became thoroughly impregnated with 
the sentiments entertained by the sects, so numerous 
and parti-colored in character that no room was left 
in my young mind for any faith of distinct and 
stable form. As years passed on I grew up with- 
out any religious training. My father had been a 
member of the Protestant Episcopal church, my 
mother a Campbellite. No restriction was placed 
upon me so far as my spiritual nature was con- 
cerned, although my mother was diligent in bring- 
ing jne up to be " a good boy." I think I never 
caused her to reprove me for vicious conduct, and 
I owe her never ending gratitude for guiding me as 
firmly as she did, although she omitted religious 
training from her scheme. 

When, somewhat late in life (I was twenty-seven 
years old), I entered a theological school in Roch- 
ester, N. Y., I had studied religious questions very 
little. I had joined the Baptist Church in Kansas 



400 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

City, Mo., in 1865, moved largely thereto, I think, 
by social considerations and the eloquent preach- 
ing of a pious Baptist divine, and I felt strongly 
inclined to be a preacher myself. I was sincerely 
anxious to do good in the world, to save souls, and 
even to be a missionary to foreign lands. The 
question of " authority " had not yet begun to 
trouble me ; I had been " led to Christ," and with 
reference to every question that I asked concerning 
duty, I was advised to " pray much " and " search 
the Scriptures." I did both, but failed to notice 
as yet that others who followed the same advice 
went in a different direction from myself and from 
one another. They consulted the same " author- 
ity," but traveled individual paths. I had not yet 
learned that the individual judgment was really the 
supreme arbiter in Protestantism. 

But doubts Jbegan to manifest themselves to my 
mind during my course in the Theological Semi- 
nary. My teachers were godly, educated men, 
and they gave me efficient instruction; but they 
could not guide me, nor indeed did they attempt to 
do so. And yet I longed to have some one speak 
to me with a tone of authority, to produce within 
me a sense of security. I was always thrown back 
upon myself as the interpreter of what I read 
and studied, and as I was drifting along with Prot- 
estant people I naturally interpreted in the Protes- 
tant way whatever fell into my mind. I studied 
church history always from the Protestant stand- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 401 

point, and was given to understand that the Writ- 
ings of the " Fathers " were exceedingly " com- 
monplace," " of no special value to the student," 
" highly colored with the sacramentarian views that 
early crept into the church," etc., etc., until I be- 
came quite convinced that any reading of those 
ancient authorities would be time thrown away. 
Every novelty and heresy of the early days, how- 
ever, we studied at length, until we were sure that 
the minority was always in the right and the ma- 
jority always in the wrong. 

Then after a few years I went out with wife 
and two babes as a missionary to Burmah, as- 
suming the direction of the mission treasury and 
of a somewhat extensive printing- establishment. 
I increased my library in the department of church 
history, and read a number of authors whose col- 
lations of facts relating to the first three centuries 
were a revelation to me. But I was not yet dis- 
posed to " let go the Scriptures," as I called it, and 
so kept on in the tenor of my way, satisfied to 
believe that even if the church to which I belonged 
was not to be found in the early times, it was 
certainly founded after the New Testament model, 
and that was all that Protestants cared for. 

I returned to America and settled down in New 
York State, and for awhile experienced a revulsion 
of feeling with regard to the Catholic church. Oc- 
casionally I would attack it in sermons, I lectured 
about it, painting in lurid colors its awful doings, 



402 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

its hideous superstitions, the depravity of its 
clergy, the ignorance of its people, its attempts 
to steal the control of the Government, the shame- 
less life of its convents, etc. These are stock 
subjects with the Protestant ministry, and never 
fail to bring out full audiences. One learns 
these things in the histories he studies, and even 
the text-books of the common schools are not al- 
ways free from them. Those things are in the air 
that the Protestant breathes, and he grows to be- 
lieve that the worst thing that could happen to the 
country would be the preponderance of the Roman 
Catholic Church. 

Years passed on : I did not see clearly enough 
to break away from church, social and domestic 
relations. I seemed to be tied to what I was, and 
I did my duty to my charges as best I could. In 
1884 I came as a missionary to Mexico, and was 
destined to spend another twenty years in mental 
struggle before I came out into the full light and 
liberty of the gospel of Christ. I must study m^ore, 
come face to face with Roman Catholicism, look at 
it minutely in all its phases, read its own authors 
who were the only ones who could properly inter- 
pret it to me, and then God helping me, I would 
decide what duty was. But I must also go down 
into the waves of sorrow and anguish of spirit, be- 
fore I could be deemed worthy to come before the 
Most High and be received as His erring child. 

They were years of struggle. I fought Ca- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 4^3 

tholicism by day, and studied it by night. And yet, 
singularly enough, I said nothing bitter, I even 
opposed the nasty things said and published by my 
colleagues, and I was uniformly the friend of the 
Catholic. Other things, too, were at work in my 
mind to bring about a change of belief; I refer to 
the multitudinous differences of doctrine and prac- 
tice among the Protestants, the constant wrangling 
of sects and missionary societies, the inconsistent 
lives of those who have left the Catholic church for 
the Protestant, the preponderance of women in mis- 
sionary work, the unfair treatment of many mis- 
sionaries by the Boards who send them out, all 
these compelled me often to ask the question. Can 
all this be of divine institution? Is this what God 
wants? Does the Holy Spirit indeed guide these 
people, or are they guided by misled, if unconscious, 
egotism, and a desire to live a comfortable worldly 
life on a sufficient salary? But I dared not criti- 
cise, nor do I so at this time, for I was in the 
same boat with them. 

The old difficulty came to me. By what authority 
am I trying to persuade these people to give up the 
faith of their fathers? No church has given me 
any authority to do so, the missionary Board is not 
a New Testament institution, and does not pretend 
to be so. Did Christ send me? If He did, how is 
it that a hundred others around me claim such 
authority, and yet each one leads the people away 
along a different road? What is truth? This be- 



404 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

came the agonizing cry of my heart, and I be- 
sought God to show it to me. For it was not only 
among the multi-colored Protestant churches that 
I found different creeds and practices, but often in 
the same church there would be a score or more 
of religious differences. In churches of which I 
had myself been pastor, we had close-communion 
Baptists, Open-communion Baptists, Land-mark 
Baptists, Baptists who did not believe in baptism 
at all, Campbellites, Mormons (one family). Spirit- 
ualists, Annihilationists, Quakers, Unitarians, Uni- 
versalists (a good many). Christian Scientists, and 
others. I do not mean to say that these people 
had abjured those view^s in order to become Bap- 
tists ; they held these views while Baptists, and some 
of them never failed to advocate them when op- 
portunity offered. The same thing is true of 
nearly every large Baptist church in the United 
States to-day. As pastor I could argue with these 
people, I could advise them to abandon those views, 
I could induce them sometimes to " study the Scrip- 
tures more," in order to find out the truth as I held 
it, but, alas, I had no authority to lay before them 
a distinct message and require their adhesion 
thereto. 

I turned with renewed zeal to the study of the 
Bible, after having gone over the field of church 
history quite extensively, and I now sought to 
know^ what Scriptural foundation the Catholic 
church had for its faith and discipline. I labored 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 405 

for seven years on the preparation of a Concord- 
ance to the Holy Scriptures, and I scrutinized 
every text that could bear upon the subject I had 
in hand. I found the authority of the Church as 
"pillar and ground of the truth," the Primacy of 
Peter, the power of the priest to forgive sins. Trans- 
substantiation, the efficacy of the Sacraments, and 
one or two others, to be so clearly taught in God's 
Word, that I dared no longer close my eyes to the 
truth. Once I was convinced of the truth that ulti- 
mate authority lay in the Church, and that she was 
the inspired interpreter of Holy Writ, the rest fol- 
lowed as a natural consequence. The Holy Spirit 
said to me : '' This is the way ; Walk ye in it." 

It was more difficult for me to accept the disci- 
pline of the church, its ceremonies and ritual, but 
here again I was aided by Him who gui^des into all 
truth when the seeker is willing to be led. Then 
came the question of obligation, the severing of old 
ties, the grieving of loved ones, the tears of wife 
and children that would flow because of my change 
of faith, the cutting off of every means of support 
for my family (for the Catholic Church would have 
no place for me), and the entire overturning of 
the old life and the adjusting of myself to a new 
one, a somewhat difficult thing for a man of sixty- 
four years of age. I consulted no one but God, 
talked with no man or priest, until I was about 
ready to stand publicly by my conscience. Then I 
called upon Father J. A. Reis, pastor of the Church 



406 SOME ROADS TO R0:\IE IN AMERICA 

of San Lorenzo, City of Mexico, and later upon the 
Archbishop, whose pious advice given me only a 
short time before his lamented decease I shall never 
forget, and on the 20th of January, 1908, I was 
baptized by Father Reis, General J. B. Frisbie and 
Judge Ignacio Sepulveda being my sponsors. I 
have found-'* the peace of God which passeth all un- 
derstanding." 



JAMES FIELD SPALDING, S.T.D. 

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. 

Author and Lecturer. 
Late Rector of Christ Church. 

I feel that I can add nothing to statements made 
long ago, as to my reason for becoming a Catholic, 
save to- say that the motive stands out all the 
stronger with the passing years. If I may quote 
(with slight alteration) from the Introduction to 
my book The World's Unrest and its Remedy 
(Longmans, 1898), 

" It was the genuine authority which the Cath- 
olic Church proves herself to possess, set forth by 
thinkers like Saint Augustine among the ancients 
and Cardinal Newman among moderns, which 
made such strong appeal to me when brought to 
consider my obHgation to truth. Although after 
my submission tO' the Church there followed a 
period of * storm and stress/ the end reached, by 
God's mercy, was the peace which can be found only 
in the * certainty and reahty ' of the Catholic faith. 

" In now adding my atom of testimony to truth, 
I may possibly aid some who are weighing the mat- 
ter, perhaps long tossed upon the waters of un- 
rest, still striving and struggling. However many 
complications may arise in the minds of thinking 
4°7 



408 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

people as they face the great question, What and 
where is the genuine rehgion of Jesus Christ ? — 
and there were never so many compHcations as to- 
day — more and more will it be found that but one 

. organization in the world can satisfy, for but one 
conserves the essential idea of the Church, the Di- 

'vine Institution, God's revelation speaking with 
His authority to men." 

And the closing sentences of the book may best 
bear my message of cheer : — "It is little for one 
or many to meet trial, discouragement, opposition, 
persecution. It is a joy to suffer and endure for 
the truth of God. Nothing else is to be compared. 
Everything is at stake. If the Catholic religion is 
not the religion of Christ, it is nothing; if it is 
that religion, it appeals to all who come within its 
reach with the exclusiveness of truth. Those who 
heed the appeal will find the sure remedy for the 
world's unrest." 



FRANK H. SPEARMAN. 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. 
Novelist. 

Just why a certain shamefacedness should attend 
the effort to relate an intimate religious experience 
is not at first thought clear ; but reflection may sug- 
gest that the instinct is a saving one and not too 
lightly to be disregarded. Any attempt of this 
kind, for instance, inevitably hints at preaching; in 
its analysis it pretty nearly is preaching; and this 
brings up a question at once embarrassing ; which of 
us is fitted to preach? Again, while we may al- 
ways be sure of the force of a good example, 
preaching is, for the most part, futile. Indeed it 
disheartens the preacher by pointing to him in ad- 
vance, this distinctive failing; and is likely to leave 
him with the feeling that nothing but the truth behind 
his text should encourage him to proceed at all. 

In looking back over five and twenty years I have 
felt at times a regret — it is not necessary to say 
how keen — that that which has seemed to me of 
all things in life most vital should not have appealed 
even to the least of my acquaintances and friends. 
The explanation follows of course, swiftly if not 
consolingly, on the regret and again raises the 
question: What might not a good example have 
409 



4IO SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

done in so many years, to lead others to believe? 
But to set a good example is very hard: to point 
a way, of any kind, so easy! 

When, therefore, one is urged into a sort of Apo- 
logia there is sufficient ground for a sense of hu- 
mility whether he be able to feel it or not. One 
thus placed will indeed wish that the story he 
has to tell were more likely to be of use to others : he 
may entertain grave doubts as to its being of use 
at all: but in telling it he will feel particularly 
obliged to put by tempting glosses and keep very 
close to the facts. To be permitted to speak at all 
in matters involving the claims of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church and the Christian philosophy is not to 
be considered other than a matter of the highest 
possible privilege. 

When I say, then, that I came into the Church 
clinging to the hand of a woman it will readily be 
understood that I married a Catholic wife. Yet 
to dismiss the story with this mere statement, as I 
am aware might be done, would be to lose some of 
its significance. Conversions of this sort are not, 
I believe, uncommon; but if this were all, the results 
in all of these cases should be pretty much the same ; 
whereas, they are markedly, even distressingly, dif- 
ferent. What is easily lost sight of in such a 
matter is that as a means of Grace a Catholic wife 
— actual or prospective — can serve only to bring 
.an enquirer to the door, so to say, of the Catholic 
Church. There is still the vital matter of working 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 41 1 

out an understanding of a faith that must seem very 
new and strange: and upon the character of 
this working out everything depends. If it be 
thorough, the result will be at least staunch, 
if not always edifying, Catholicity; a conviction so 
deep-seated and compelling that it becomes a 
master-influence, a part and parcel of thought 
and life itself. If on the other hand the matter 
be only formally worked out, the conversion may 
result in a state worse than the first. The very 
working out process will take complexion largely 
from what a man brings to the study of the Church. 
In most instances, I think, it takes years for the 
convert to conceive anything like an adequate im- 
pression of the real majesty of this great and visibly 
Divine institution. 

The lives of average American boys — and I was 
an average American boy — do not in their en- 
vironment greatly differ. Temperament, however, 
disposed me very early to much reading. I read 
omnivorously, chiefly perhaps of fiction, but among 
other matter some history fell in my way. While 
the claims of some fiction to being history are al- 
ways on the point of question, we need not cavil 
here over the claims of some history to being fic- 
tion: I mean especially to indicate such history as 
has to do with differences in the matter of religion. 
Easily moved — again through temperament — by 
cruelty of any sort, stories of cruelty appealed at 
once to me, and in my reading my earliest sym- 



412 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

pathies were enlisted toward the victims of reli- 
gious persecution by Roman Catholics. The next 
mental step very naturally was to attribute the mis- 
deeds of the persecutors to the doctrines and prac- 
tices of the Church itself. I should doubtless have 
reached, through mere confusion of ideas, a con- 
clusion of this sort without aid. But the dishonest 
historian rarely leaves the reader unaided in these 
matters : he helps him rapidly along in his reasoning 
by doing his thinking for him. I was quite inno- 
cent, too, of knowing that these misdeeds — atro- 
cious enough in themselves — were distorted and 
magnified a thousandfold by the ingenious malice 
of the narrators. Nor was I informed by these 
frank and dispassionate writers that the Protestant 
party could do, and upon fitting occasions had done, 
highly creditable jobs of its own in this line. As 
to the Protestant Reformation itself which I had 
come to look upon as a sort of divine Magna Char- 
ta of religious liberty, and which certainly has 
proved itself so admirable a Magna Charta of re- 
ligious license, the suspicion that it was very 
largely a political movement lay as far from my 
mind as possible. Many years were to pass before 
I should come, for instance, to know that in 
the country of my own forefathers, good Queen 
Bess could have given her bloodthirsty sister Mary 
all sorts of points in the matter of burnings, hang- 
ings, drawings and quarterings : and before I should 
realize that the English Reformation movement 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 413 

consisted in its underlying strength of what is pop- 
ularly known in our day as graft — the grafters be- 
ing engaged in a pious scheme to overthrow the 
Catholic authority in order to divide its accumu- 
lated property between a vicious royalty and a 
robber-baron following. 

Cruelty, then, was the first and strongest of my 
impressions concerning the Roman Catholic Church 
and its doctrines and it came to me wholly through 
my reading: the springs of history were poisoned 
against me as they are poisoned against all inexpe- 
rienced readers. In my home I received no encour- 
agement for my views. My father and my mother 
never shared my alarm concerning the threatening 
tendencies of Roman Catholicism. My mother, a 
woman of unusually sane and even poise, sometimes 
startled me by saying that a Catholic might be as 
good a Christian as anyone. My father was 
frankly impatient at my horror stories; and I be- 
gan to hear about this time with interest of an elder 
sister, whom I had never seen, that had become a 
Roman Catholic. This fact is the only one I 
can recall that might have influenced me towards 
the Church, but it could hardly have done so 
since I had grown to manhood before we two ever 
met. Going back still further in childhood I do 
recall a very slight something which while far from 
an influence has seemed in the light of the sequel, 
pleasing. In the little room where the first recol- 
lections of consciousness as a child come to me there 



414 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

hung above my bed a picture of St. Augustine. 
It disappeared from the home with the accidents 
of time, and so long ago that I cannot recollect when 
I missed it. But I do very distinctly remember 
the old-fashioned portrait in its quaint oval frame, 
and I recall that a little prayer in the form of a 
verse was printed under it. The substance of the 
prayer I have forgotten though my mother must 
have read it to me more than once. But I have 
often wondered how a picture of St. Augustine 
found its way into a home so far removed from the 
influences of the Church from which he himself 
was long so far; and to which he also one day 
yielded and in which he shone so long with so great 
a light to others. It is but fair to say that I never 
suspected St. Augustine of Catholicism: and the 
only picture of a Pope that ever fell under my early 
notice was contained in an old wood-cut in a copy 
of Pilgrim's Progress. In this, the Pope, chained 
within a cave beside a second toothless giant named 
Pagan, grinned helplessly at Christian marching 
rather blithely by — and not nearly so much alarmed 
at the situation as I was. 

My parents, originally in Delaware of Methodist 
stock, were affiliated in the west with the Congre- 
gational Church and I had always taken interest in 
religious matters. During these early years I 
was under genuinely good influences — influences 
of a real Christian kind, the old-fashioned, sim- 
ple, evangelical kind; and it is a regret that such 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 415 

a faith as I then saw and knew in the lives of those 
of my own community, and others Hke it, was not 
able to withstand the rather contemptible rational- 
istic storms of the thirty years that have passed 
since. Unhappily its house was built upon the 
sand and the waves that have washed during that 
time and in the same way quite helplessly against 
the Catholic rock have undermined and washed the 
other away forever. The spectacle of a Christian 
faith struggling to hold to the Bible alone is, when 
watched for the years of one lifetime, sufficiently 
pathetic : but the spectacle of such a faith going to 
pieces before the " discoveries '* of certain eminent 
scholars concerning the Bible is sad indeed. My 
mother died : my father I had already lost. It was 
my mother's wish, and my desire as well, that I 
should join the church and after her death I was re- 
ceived into the Congregational communion by an af- 
fectionate pastor. I was then about sixteen years 
old. My young pastor was delicate in health and is 
long since dead. I was his firstfruit he told me 
prettily ; and though he would then have been greatly 
shocked to look this far into my future I hope he 
is now well reconciled to the long journey that I have 
taken. At eighteen, I was well out into the world 
and with nothing fixed or definite in religious dis- 
cipline to hold me, had easily lapsed into indif- 
ference. In my reading I had become interested at 
this time in the brilliancies of the French Encyclo- 
pedists — we used to hear more of them then than 



4l6 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

now — and I was, in matter of fact, superficially 
agnostic. In the large city, however, to which I had 
been drawn I made my home with a Roman Cath- 
olic family. Perhaps this was through a special 
Providence, and though the influence did not con- 
sciously move me at the time, it served afterward. 
I have spoken of the force of a good example: 
possibly this is the place to say that when the time 
of indecision finally and disquietingly came, one of 
the factors in strengthening me on the road toward 
Rome was the edifying life of Catholics whom I had 
intimately known. I left these influences within 
two or three years and others making in quite an- 
other direction succeeded. Still afterward, I was 
again brought, as I have said, through the nearness 
of my marriage, face to face with the claims of the 
Roman Catholic Church. 

I had no idea even then of becoming a Catholic, 
but having been generously accepted as I was — I 
had, of course, been baptized — it came to me after 
a time that the least I owed to this Church, which 
had, as it were, reared in the womanly virtues her 
whom I had asked to be my wife, was to examine 
into its claims upon my own allegiance. 

Then it came about that the strength of my early 
impressions was, to my confusion, sharply revived. 
I was armed, so to say, at all points against Cath- 
olic truth. I was armed it is true with a quiver of 
poisoned historical arrows but I had great confi- 
dence in them. Added to this perhaps vague but 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 417 

deeply fixed impression of cruelty was a second im- 
pression that Catholic practice savored of a for- 
bidding credulity. Modern miracles were a stum- 
bling-block to me and a serious one. Skepticism is 
usually tinged with contempt and my attitude on 
this point, either consciously or subconsciously, was 
one of contempt for the vagaries of the Catholic be- 
lief. Fortunately, I did not concern myself with 
matters that I was even less competent to question 
— such for instance as the Papal Infallibility. De- 
velopment of doctrine was quite too academic a 
matter to concern me; and as for dogma in general 
I did not know the difference between the Immacu- 
late Conception and the Virgin Motherhood. My 
position to\\iard Catholicism was, broadly, one of 
suspicion and contemptuous distrust, based on the 
consciously superior, not to say insolent, attitude 
of reading and thought on that subject among 
English-speaking Protestants. What a moral astig- 
matism it has impressed upon our English-speaking 
views of life! And the heavier the error of re- 
fraction the more complacently we rest within our 
gallery of distorted images. The fatuity of it all 
is at times startling. 

It was, then, upon a vague and general indict- 
ment based on particulars such as these that I haled 
the great Christian Church into my rather sorry 
court to plead for itself. It is depressing to recall 
all of this; somewhat embarrassing to set it down. 
But it was perhaps fitting that the forefront of my 



4l8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

charges against the Mother of all Mercies should 
have been cruelty: and that I should have asked 
the venerable guardian of all that is precious in 
human knowledge to be good enough to explain to 
me the cause of her own salient ignorances and de- 
fects. However, the august Mother had learned 
humility long before I sought to humiliate her, and 
had long been accustomed to pleading for her Mas- 
ter before tribunals almost as unworthy as that 
to which she was then summoned. 
- A further matter, merely personal, seemed to in- 
terpose an obstacle in my road. I was a Mason 
and the order was interdict. The incident would 
hardly be worth mentioning save for the fact that 
it did interpose a difficulty and that it has done so 
in the case of many others. I had become a 
Mason in the most natural way in the world and as 
many young American men do. My old home had 
long been broken up and I had formed no new one. 
Having no fixed abode and being much of the time 
among strangers, the order seemed to afford a cer- 
tainty of friends in the event of illness or emergency ; 
and I asked a very dear friend to present my name 
for membership and was received very cordially 
into a little country-town lodge. When I thought 
of becoming a Catholic and found I could no 
longer remain a Mason I was in perplexity. Our 
American small-town lodge was never, it should 
be said, exercised in plotting against the Church. 
Its business was punctiliously to observe its rit- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 419 

ual — registered, it is true, in sufficiently ter- 
rible oaths, but no one took them over-seriously : to 
order its fraternal charities, and chiefly, as I re- 
member, to have a good time in receiving new mem- 
bers and matters of that sort. The atrocities of 
the unspeakable Continental bands of the same or- 
der — avowedly atheistic and openly depraved — 
were quite outside ^our ken. From the Masonic 
side of the question there was in my case, no ap- 
parent reason why I could not belong both to the 
Church and to the Order. But the Church knew, 
better than I, that here a vital principle was at stake. 
That an oath with so broad an obligation of secrecy 
as the Masonic ritual enjoins is not to be trifled 
with : that it has led to many and serious abuses and 
may at any time do so again: that it has no place 
in the Christian discipline, none in the Christian 
philosophy. I do not mean to say that I was clear 
on this broader view at the time. What I realized 
instinctively was that Masonry was nothing vital 
in my life, whereas the matter of the choice of a 
religion was extremely vital. Lodge affiliations are 
as nothing, either on the side of restraint or exten- 
sion when compared with any attempt to live out the 
Catholic discipline. One is child's play, the other, 
to use the forcible American expression is, " busi- 
ness." That chiefly which worried me was : What 
will this brotherhood think of me as a seceder, a 
renegade? However, when the time came, I 
dropped out — on the practical ground, as I have 



420 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

said, of weighing the vital against the non- vital. The 
position of the Church, I reahzed I could not com- 
petently question. It had had the experience with 
this and countless other secret orders during many 
centuries : I had not. It knew : I did not know. If 
I could accept its sanction in other matters certainly 
I had no adequate reason for refusing to accept 
them in this. I ceased to be a Mason. What the 
order thought of me I do not know. I do know they 
would have thought more of me had I withdrawn 
formally and in an open and manly way. But not 
all of us are born with moral courage and to many 
it comes very late. I do not know how old St. 
Peter lived to be: but it seems to me that even 
without the miraculous strengthening of the Holy 
Ghost in that memorable descent, he would have 
lived to outgrow a possible repetition of the pitiful 
denial of his Master. One would think that he 
must have grown in time to where he simply could 
not make that mistake if confronted again. And 
it is to be remembered that he traveled much far- 
ther on his road to Rome after the death of his 
Master than before. Most of us like to avoid not 
alone imminent dangers but embarrassing formali- 
ties and possible unpleasantnesses. To those who, 
situated as I was, dread breaking ties in interdict 
orders for fear of the loss of temporal advantages or 
of business or of friends, I can say with the con- 
fidence of experience that these matters are bug- 
bears : when the step is taken they come to nothing. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 42 1 

No friendship worth preserving will be lost to any 
man through following his convictions in profess- 
ing the Roman Catholic faith : and if this were the 
place to pay a tribute to true friendship I should 
only have need to say that he who first presented 
my name to a Masonic lodge still remains after the 
test of these many years my earliest as well as one 
of my dearest friends. 

But I have said, this was an obstacle merely per- 
sonal and I recall it only to beg of those similarly 
embarrassed to remember that it is at worst but a 
minor point; and that it should never in any of its 
phases be allowed to grow beyond its true minor 
perspective. 

To get back to the real question that was seri- 
ously before me: Can I, I asked myself, take on 
Roman Catholicism? To decide this I must of 
necessity seek Catholic books and advisers. If I 
had it to do over again, in what an orderly and 
seemly way could I not proceed! But a young 
American man of business strenuously engaged in 
temporal affairs and chiefly occupied with getting on 
in this world, nor over-solicitous as to what should 
happen to him in the next — if indeed there were 
any next, a fact that he was disposed to concede but 
did not care to insist upon — such a one could hardly 
be expected to approach a grave religious question 
in the manner of an academic personage. What 
stands most clearly out of the new body of confused 
impressions that came to me at that time is the in- 



422 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

fluence of one personality, that of John Henry New- 
man. It was, it seems to me, Newman — kindly, 
serious, patient, and consoling as the great Church 
itself — who most smoothed the way for me to un- 
derstand. I read his Apologia. It is the story of 
a road to Rome as far removed as possible from 
that which I could expect or hope to travel — the 
story of the intimate working of the mind of a great 
and learned divine. No doubt much of it I failed 
to grasp: possibly pages and pages of it were not 
written for me, but there were, I am sure, things of 
importance in it that I did grasp. For example, 
from Newman's story I got my first glimpse of the 
heart of a boy entirely innocent; and I was able to 
compare it with the heart of another boy that I 
knew. Here, curiously enough, was a starting point 
for thought. Here was an innocence to which I 
had grown, if I had not always been, a stranger. 
And I believed Newman: he convinced me. Rous- 
seau never did this : the " Confessions," to me, bore 
the stamp of insincerity. During the earlier period 
in which I had read them I simply did not believe 
the professions of Jean Jacques. If, indeed, he did 
tell everything he is entitled to the crown which he 
industriously spent his life in hammering out for 
himself. But I never could satisfy myself that 
Rousseau made what Catholics term a good con- 
fession. 

As to Newman, I was disposed on the very 
strength of this novel and innocent candor to listen 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 423 

to the grave man. Disposed to listen ! How much 
that means. How much depends on what confi- 
dence we put in the teacher. Others, very many 
others, than Newman could have led me, for the 
Mother of Saints is never without instruments to 
guide enquirers: it was Newman chiefly, I think, 
who did. He softened my suspicions and disarmed 
my distrust: and as another great teacher after- 
ward did for me in another great field, brought my 
ignorances home to me, so graciously, so delicately, 
that they became, as it were, ashamed and slipped 
away unperceived. Then he left me to myself. 

On the subject of miracles I found that my diffi- 
culties were based, as nearly as enquirers' difficulties 
are, on mere misapprehension of Catholic doctrine. 
I learned that the only miracles that were " of faith " 
were those miracles recorded in the Bible or neces- 
sarily deduced from the deposit of faith. To any- 
one who believes that Christ is God there is ob- 
viously no difficulty in receiving the record of His 
miraculous power. Upon the Divinity of Christ I 
had always hung the first link in the chain of my 
faith. It has never been other than a matter of 
instant recognition and acceptance to me that this 
Man was different, not in degree but in kind from 
all other men. Toward later miracles, then, my at- 
titude when I entered the Church was naturally one 
of suspicious skepticism. It is needless, almost, to 
say that many years and the Catholic viewpoint have 
greatly softened this. I was asked on becoming a 
28 



424 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Catholic to accede on this point to only one proposi- 
tion : that in the life of the Church, miracles always 
had been and always would be possible: but that 
the authenticity of any particular miracle is a matter 
of evidence. I approached Catholic enquiry with a 
very poor opinion of the tribunals before which 
questions of authenticity are brought. It is hardly 
necessary to add that subsequent familiarity with 
Catholic procedure has led me to a very high opin- 
ion of such tribunals. And as to the matter of mir- 
acles in the life of the Church itself, its history so 
abounds in them and they are in so numberless cases 
thoroughly attested that I could only look upon 
myself as utterly crass if I still shook my head at 
them. They are matters concerning which I can- 
not possibly have first-hand knowledge but upon 
which, men who, to put it as mildly as possible, are 
quite as competent as I am to judge, have passed 
judgment : and w^ho in no instance seek to compel my 
belief in their findings but having given them on in- 
cidents of a nature always difficult to determine 
leave me free to accept or to question. One would 
think that a reasonable man could hardly ask more. 
Devotion to the Blessed Virgin was, of course, 
with me a sore, not to say offensive, point in the 
Catholic practice. And the unfortunate Saints! 
God will surely recompense them in some way for 
the lively suspicion with which they are regarded 
by non-Catholics. Fancy the feelings of St. Al- 
phonsus Liguori at the indictments that have been 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 425 

drawn sternly against him ! And it would seem that 
the distance to which the sects have variously wan- 
dered from the teachings of real Christianity may 
accurately be measured by their attitude towards 
devotion to the Blessed Virgin, or " Mary " as she 
is familiarly known not by her friends. To in- 
voke the most favored servants of God that they 
may join us in asking for the petitions we lay before 
Him — how odious hatred has made the beautiful 
custom wherever it has had a chance to blind the 
human heart to Catholic truth ! The white prayers 
of the just — living and dead — how consoling the 
thought that we can enlist them to plead with our- 
selves for our unworthiness ! But in the chilling 
wastes of non-Catholic Christianity how conscien- 
tiously the unfortunate suppliant turns his face from 
these faithful children of our common Father, as 
if the very odour of their sanctity were an offense, 
and stonily sets about his petitions heedless of their 
loving sympathy. Yet those over-scrupulous sin- 
ners who cannot countenance an appeal to the saints 
for intercessory prayers quite commonly ask one 
another for prayers of the very same sort. Cer- 
tainly, I may be permitted to say, when once I had 
freed myself from prejudice, it did not take excep- 
tionally hard thinking to convince me who had the 
better of this question of devotion to the Mother 
of God and to His saints. 

Those that know Catholic truth — even many of 
those that do not — will already have perceived the 



426 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

futility of my chief objection to it. Cruelty is a 
matter serious enough. It is, indeed, so serious that 
a just man will exercise every effort not unjustly to 
attach this odium to any person or institution. 
When I came to discriminate — as even a slight con- 
sideration must force me to do — between the sins 
of unworthy Catholics and the doctrines of the 
Catholic Church itself I saw that upon the charge 
of cruelty, at all events, the ground was slipping 
from under me. I was reminded very kindly that 
Christ had never promised perfection to human na- 
ture, nor that scandals should not arise among his 
followers. The question left for me to thrash out 
was, to what were these cruelties, real and alleged, 
due: to the doctrines of the Catholic Church or to 
human nature still unregenerate ? There could be, 
there can be, but one issue here and but one answer. 
The Church of Christ has never been, I was to 
learn, other than all merciful. It is not alone that 
its spirit has been that of mercy, but that its teach- 
ings become, the more deeply they are studied, 
most wonderful of all in the depths of their mercy. 
To take one passing instance out of many that might 
suggest themselves, who was there to tell me, be- 
fore I began to study, that it is of Catholic doctrine 
that we are not permitted to say that a soul 
is lost? That no matter how depraved the life 
may have been, no matter how abhorrent the trans- 
gressions of human and divine law it is still of the 
CathoHc belief that a merciful possibility remains: 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 427 

and that in the very last moment of such a Hfe, 
even during a flash of consciousness in a death of 
repulsive delirium, there still may come, unseen by 
the closest observer, an instant of perfect contrition 
to save that soul from eternal damnation. I offer 
but this instance of what has so struck me in this re- 
gard. As to cruelty, men there have been, no 
doubt, within the Catholic Church sufficiently in- 
famous; but if kings, rulers, prelates or priests 
have disgraced their profession of its faith by en- 
acting or countenancing savagery they are simply 
answerable where we shall all one day be answera- 
ble — not for the sins of others but for our own. 

It is really curious that because Catholics have 
committed murder we should charge murder upon 
the teachings of the Catholic Church. We do not 
follow these accusations against it, as we logically 
should, through the decalogue. No one asserts, be- 
cause a Catholic may steal, that the Catholic Church 
conducts a novitiate for pickpockets. The Christian 
religion — and here I use the term as identical with 
the Catholic Church because experience teaches that 
none of the sects exercise over their followers any- 
thing approaching the control exercised by the Cath- 
olic Church over its followers — the Christian reli- 
gion, I say, has to do with a human nature possess- 
ing a propensity almost incredible for wrongdoing. 
Though, indeed, there is a limit it would seem that 
it must often have been passed by Christians. But 
to admit that Christianity has not always made 



428 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

saints of men is in no way to disparage its truths. 
And thus it is, I repeat, that the whole mis- 
erable subject of religious persecution has noth- 
ing proper to do with religious truth. The 
causes of the former lie deep in the least tol- 
erable qualities of human nature itself. Those 
things most inhuman are paradoxically most hu- 
man. In the matter of religious zeal — if we con- 
sider that alone — it always has been and always 
will be easier to smite off the ear of the servant 
of the high priest than to watch for one hour in 
the garden of Gethsemane; but the rewards are 
sure to be something radically different. In mat- 
ter of fact the more deeply one goes into the in- 
quiry of religious persecution, insofar as it 
affects the claims of the Catholic Church, the more 
will he come to realize that it is a scarecrow 
dressed up for his disedification. The sum of the 
matter has been outrageously exaggerated; the ly- 
ing about it has been as relentless and implacable 
as its pictured ferocities; and in the end it will 
be found that the Church itself has when pos- 
sible alleviated its horrors and when impossible 
protested against them. It is a bogy which at its 
worst should deceive no one: has nothing rele- 
vantly to do with the case: and puts on the en- 
quirer's shoulders nothing to apologise for but the 
sins of individual Catholics. For that matter, if 
he begin to apologise for sin at all, he will find, 
with even indifferent industry, quite enough out- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 429 

side the question of Catholic claims and religious 
persecutions to busy him very comfortably. 

In speaking with frankness as I have done in 
this matter I do not for a moment lose sight of 
that maxim containing so much of human as well 
as of divine wisdom, " By their fruits ye shall 
know them." The Church of Christ may well on 
the last day bring its fruits before its Master to 
prove its identity. Who, indeed, shall speak in 
the presence of those legions of Catholic Christians 
who from the greatest to the least of earth have 
given themselves as missionaries, martyrs, virgins 
and confessors to its work? The honor roll of 
the Roman Catholic Church! What a silence its 
august centuries impose upon the detractor. 

Unhappily the enquirer knows nothing of this 
greater side of the Church. The very atmosphere 
of his religious surroundings differs in composition 
from that which he will find within the Church. 
Non-Catholic Christianity exploits the individual. 
Catholic Christianity while never, let it be marked, 
effacing him, subdues the individual to his proper 
perspective. The brilliant preacher, always the 
life and sap of the evangelical tree, becomes upon 
the Catholic tree merely the leaf that he should be : 
Christ never sought out brilliant preachers to do 
His work. There is room in the Catholic Church 
for every species of rightly directed human energy 
and activity and for every admirable type of human 
intellect — and they are all to be found busily en- 



430 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

gaged within it. In the shreds and patches of 
Christian doctrine to be seen in the teachings of 
even the most grotesque of the sects there is nothing 
that may not be seen in its purity in the Catholic 
behef : there is nothing praiseworthy in all of their 
practises not already exemplified, and in manner, 
incomparably more praiseworthy, in the Catholic 
practise. But to realize this requires some little, 
but vital, reading and some years of observation 
and deduction. The realization of how miraculously 
Jesus Christ and the Church He left have modified 
human nature, drawn out of it its sting and made 
of it in countless instances an object of such marvel 
for our edification — this splendor dawns only 
gradually on the neophyte. But in the pro- 
portion that it does dawn upon him his intelli- 
gence may be said to be complfinented and in that 
proportion he is strengthened and deepened in his 
veneration for the great Church that he has en- 
tered. 

The perception of this comes to all converts, I 
believe, very slowly. Newman took seven years 
after he had become practically convinced before 
he made the momentous step, so much did he 
dread the possibility of a mistake. I went in, I 
should say, at the beginning of such a seven years ; 
and I say this because I found afterwards so much 
to grow to. But I remember, pretty distinctly 
that first moment in which I was aware that the 
curiously dreaded change had come: vv^hen I re- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA * 43 1 

alized that the matter had been taken out of my 
hands — as I had long asked that it might be — 
and knew that from that moment I should pro- 
fess a faith still very strange. Theology has 
somewhere a name for that moment of efficacious 
grace but it escapes me now. I recall very clearly 
the room, its loneliness, an open window, the 
silence of the night : It was the instant of final 
surrender. But why should it have been an in- 
stant of tears? Why should the beggar shaking 
off his spiritual tatters feel other than elated ? Yet 
to rearrange one's mental furnishings, even if they 
be but rags ; to give up one's body of views of con- 
duct, his philosophy of life, if you will — for such 
little matters we share in common with the luna- 
tics, not to say the other lunatics — these are not to 
be put away without something of a shock. But 
the change had come. I had risen for the last time 
out of doubt and for the first time into certainty. 
I say certainty because the Roman Catholic 
Church and the Christian philosophy stand all the 
assaults of right reason. The convert may test 
them from any point of view. If an American, and 
hard-headed and practical, as he is in his busi- 
ness, he demand present-day evidences of what the 
Catholic Church is standing for, he has need only 
to measure up its position with the questions of 
the day. When I say the day, I should include 
all days, that ever have been and ever will be and 
in every country that the sun shines on, for the 



432 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Church always has had particular questions to 
meet and always will have. But to take those of 
our own day, who that is serious and thoughtful 
must not, after due consideration, take his place 
with Her on the question of divorce and the sanc- 
tity of the home: on that of socialism and anar- 
chism and the definite rights of property and so- 
ciety: and on the pathetic blight of our childless 
marriages and families limited by unnatural prac- 
tices ? 

Nor are these questions and many like them 
simple in nature and easy of solution. They are 
exceedingly delicate and complicated and in every 
instance the Catholic Church, one will find, meets 
them squarely. There is here no shuffling, no eva- 
sion, no refuge behind glittering phrases and flow- 
ing generalities. To speak broadly and reassur- 
ingly of the Fatherhood of God and the Brother- 
hood of man and slip with a distinctly high at- 
titude away from explicit responsibility will not do 
in Catholic theology. The Catholic Church must 
answer definitely back both to God and to the hus- 
band that covets another wife : to God and the out- 
raged, embittered man that has revolted against 
the stony injustices of wealth: to God and the re- 
bellious wife who shirking the office of mother- 
hood pleads with angry sobs again to be allowed 
to stoop to that degradation of the concubine from 
which Christianity with so much of blood and tears 
lifted her up nineteen hundred years ago. And the 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 433 

Catholic Church, unfalteringly, to these questioners 
and to God does answer back. 

Fine phrases in such instances are absolutely 
valueless. When questions of sin are to be handled 
it is necessary to get down to the ground of cold, 
hard fact and to say, this you may, this you may not. 
And the Catholic Church must, as it does, get down 
to this ground and out of its divine authority speak 
plainly. 

If it be thought that it uses uncertain tones on 
" delicate " matters and leaves " largely '' to 
" one's own views " just what one may or may not 
do, consult the least of its many pastors and hear 
what he has to say. One may learn, as the ad- 
vertisements say, something to one's advantage. 
And here it is in Catholic teaching that there is 
found so much to wonder at in the soundness of its 
wisdom, the breadth of its justice and the solici- 
tude of its mercy. 

Shall the answer of such questions be left to 
the individual conscience? That was the sugges- 
tion of the sixteenth century. Do the results sat- 
isfy? It was an experiment then; to-day, we have 
the object lesson. It is about us on every hand. 
In the sixteenth century declarations, everything 
was to be referred back to the Bible and the court 
of Christian appeal was to be discarded. No one 
has successfully proposed to do away with civil 
courts. But why not let every man walk about 
with a copy of the statutes under his arm and with 



434 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

the advice that he interpret the provisions of each 
section according to the dictates of his own con- 
science? How long" would human society endure 
such an experiment? How have the religious so- 
cieties founded on this experiment endured it? 
Have they not, in fact, set aside the restraint they 
began with and for the most part pitched their 
book of statutes out into the roadway? With 
these societies, authority is not only discarded 
but pretty thoroughly disclaimed. Clearly, very 
clearly, this experiment was destined not to suc- 
ceed. As a religious movement it has quite cer- 
tainly passed the zenith of its strength; within our 
own generation it has entered its inevitable decline 
into agnosticism and loses in its new ground none 
of its early confidence. But in the life of the 
Church, the religious upheaval of the sixteenth cen- 
tury only suggests the formidable revolt of the 
Arians during the fourth and fifth centuries. To 
the Church these are but sad incidents in the story 
of Her cycles ; and it is not to-day with Protestant- 
ism but with the results of Protestantism that She 
is called to combat and foes more formidable are 
again in the field. The sixteenth century experi- 
ment offers no ground for positive faith. Men still 
are seeking Christianity; and if one were asked to- 
day, " Why be a Catholic ? " he would have warrant 
for answering quite definitively and wnth a question 
much more significant, " What else can I be ? " 
We easily find something to shrink from in the 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 435 

mere idea of " joining " the Catholic Church. We 
make of the actual step a bugbear. But the simple 
and vital question, each to himself, is: Am I pre- 
pared to accept Christianity? If the question has 
come to you and the answer be yes, then the 
fact must frankly be recognized that to-day it exists 
nowhere, save in shreds and fragments, outside 
Catholic Christianity and you must go to the sim- 
plest of its priests and ask to be made Christian. 
When the baptism or confession or both, are done 
and the soul already lighter is made ready to receive 
the Blessed Eucharist the feeling will already have 
come upon you that you are entered into a new 
company: and that no matter how serious your 
own deficiencies, you are finally at one with those 
Christians who, eighteen hundred years ago, in Ju- 
dea and on the shores of the Mediterranean spoke 
and taught. That as they stood then for the faith 
so you yourself must stand now for it or be for- 
ever shamed. The words Catholic and Catholicism 
will cease then to convey a reproach and human 
shame will give way to a generous pride; for of 
all earthly companies into which one may be ad- 
mitted there is no company like to this. 



THE RT. REV. MONSIGNOR WILLIAM E. 
STARR, 

BALTIMORE, MD. 

Prelate of the Papal Household; Rector of Corpus Christi 
Church. 

I found my way into the Church, after a pe- 
riod of utter disgust with the divisions of Protes- 
tantism, for which I could see no earthly rea- 
son. I was brought up a Presbyterian, but 
early learned that my elders could give me no 
rational account of their position over others, who, 
equally with themselves, undertook to form their 
religion out of the Bible. I was so utterly dis- 
heartened, that I had reached the conclusion, very 
reluctantly indeed, that if God wanted me to know 
what I must know and do to please Him, He has 
taken great pains to make the discovery impossible. 
The principle of authority, I had heard flouted 
from earliest childhood, and it was only when I 
grew to see that it was that or nothing, that I 
looked about me to find if there was in the world 
anywhere an authority that was of divine origin. 
The result was inevitable for a mind both logical and 
religious. 



436 



CHARLES WARREN STODDARD, LL.D., 

COSMOPOLITAN. 
Author of " South Sea Idyls," etc. 

CHILDHOOD. 

Our old home in the city stood upon a street 
corner, opposite a Gothic church built of rough 
gray stone. Every morning this church was 
thronged, and on Sundays it seemed to me that 
services would never end there. This amazed me; 
for we children were taken to a church on Sunday 
only — a day which was called " Sabbath ". among 
my people — and when the eleven o'clock sermon 
was ended, and the " Sabbath-school," which fol- 
lowed it, was over, we returned home, and re- 
mained there, being too young to be taken out to 
the evening sermon or lecture. 

Many a time did I listen to the music that was 
wafted from the beautiful church over the way. 
It was music unlike any that I had ever heard 
— music that soothed and comforted me, yet at 
the same time filled me with an indefinable yearn- 
ing. At evening, when the light streamed through 
the richly-tinted windows; when beyond the doors 
that swung to and fro I caught glimpses of clus- 
tering tapers, twinkling like dim stars through 

437 



43^ SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

clouds of vapor ; when I heard thrihing voices soar- 
ing in ecstasy above the solemn swell of the organ, 
— it seemed to me that heaven must be in there. 
Once, and once only, did I enter this chapel — my 
little heaven on earth. I went thither with our 
maid. I had begged her to take me; and, without 
leave, we went together. We were early: the 
lights burned dimly in the gathering twilight. I 
saw for the first time in my life a picturesque in- 
terior : tapering columns, pointed arches, rose-win- 
dows, pictures, statues and frescoes. I saw an al- 
tar that inspired me with curious awe; a throng 
of worshipers, who knelt humbly and prayed inces- 
santly, so that the quiet of the chapel was broken 
by the soft murmur of lisping lips. Some one in 
a long dark robe came from a hidden chamber and 
lighted the candles upon the altar. Where had I 
seen something like this before? I tried to recall 
a race of beings clad in these garments, and of 
whose history I had somehow gained a knowledge. 
Then a priest in cope, attended by a long train of 
acolytes, approached the altar. And child as I was 
I felt that the hearts of the worshipers joined the 
rapturous Alleluia of the choir. 

BOYHOOD. 

When I was about ten years of age, we children 
were taken by our mother into a far country 
whither our father had preceded us. When I was 
twelve years old it was my lot, and my choice also, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 439 

to be sent upon a long sea-voyage, as companion 
to an older brother, who was an invalid, in search 
of health. 

On leaving home, my mother's last injunction was 
to read daily some chapters of my Bible, and this 
I never failed to do. What solemn hours were 
mine, alone in my cramped stateroom, poring over 
that wonderful volume, and every day becoming 
more and more perplexed with its histories and mys- 
teries! I did not then know that the wisest heads 
have disputed over it; that while it is the fountain 
of all love, it has likewise watered the seeds of all 
dissension. It is reasonable to suppose that the 
most vigorous exercise of my private judgment was 
not likely to aid me in the interpretation of even 
the simplest texts. My mental horizon seemed to 
grow more and more limited as I advanced; I was 
swallowed up in a solitude as vast as the sea, and 
seemed to be drifting upon a shoreless waste of 
waters. 

YOUTH. 

I was growing into the speculative age; had be- 
gun to philosophize after a fashion, and to analyze 
my own motives and those of others with whom I 
was brought in contact. 

The state of unbelief in which so many whom I 
have known have complacently settled themselves 
has always seemed to me the most uncomfortable 
of all spiritual conditions; indeed, it is a condition 



440 ' SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

which is totally wanting in spirituality. A firm 
conviction of some sort was absolutely necessary 
to my happiness. I felt that I must believe some- 
thing. However, to tell the whole truth, it did 
not then seem to me to matter very much what I 
beheved, I began a search after truth, or what I 
thought to be truth; and my search, at least, was 
an honest one. I knew God to be the source of all 
truth. I desired to worship Him; and, as He was 
worshiped after one fashion or another in the many 
and various churches of the city, I wandered from 
house to house like a weary spirit, seeking that ab- 
solute rest which I had never known. 

I was constantly laboring under the conviction that 
if my heart was not touched it was because of the 
hardness of the heart; and that the fault, of what- 
ever nature it might be, was mine alone. 

And thus time passed without any spiritual bene- 
fit to my soul until I resolved never again to enter 
a Protestant church; never again to seek to recon- 
cile her multifarious denominational differences; 
never again to imperil the little peace of mind I 
had by profitless speculation. 

MANHOOD. 

There was to be a high festival in the church of 
which my German music master was director. A 
very famous composition was to be produced, with 
an efficient chorus and full orchestral accompani- 
ment; and my master urged me to be present on 



I 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 44 1 

that occasion, promising me a seat by his side near 
the organ. I met him at the door of the cathedral ; 
it was with difficulty that we made our way to the 
organ-loft, so dense was the throng that had long 
since filled the pews, galleries, and aisles, and so 
great the crowd in the vestibule and upon the steps 
and pavement before the cathedral doors. From 
my position by the organist, above the heads of the 
singers and instrumentalists, I looked into the mys- 
tic nave, and saw the high altar with its constel- 
lations of twinkling tapers, and the soft glow of 
the lesser lights upon the altars in the transepts. 
I saw the glorious paintings, the exquisite statues, 
and the admirable architectural surroundings. 

At last I beheld a congregation that shared a 
single sentiment; the whole body seemed swayed 
by one emotion, yet each member of that vast body 
was individually absorbed in a private devotion. 
Where else had I seen such an impressive spec- 
tacle, where else such reverent decorum? Where 
else could I have seen it? I was deeply moved; 
and when my master touched the keys of his in- 
strument, and a prelude as delicate and as full of 
inspiration as the song of the soaring lark was 
breathed among the stately pipe columns that 
towered almost like a forest above our heads ; when 
the long procession of acolytes entered and, bow- 
ing before the tabernacle, ranged themselves within 
the altar-railing; when the deacons and priests fol- 
lowed, preceding the bishop in his rich robes ; when 



442 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

the solemn ceremonial was in progress, and the in- 
cense-clouded air trembled with the gush of mel- 
ody that seemed to permeate the very stones of the 
edifice and to sway that mass of humanity as the 
tide is swayed slowly to and fro ; when every heart 
seemed to respond to a single pulse — a pulse 
throbbing in one great heart that was burning with 
the love of God : when I began to realize this I held 
my breath and prayed that the ecstasy of that hour 
might never end. It was a mighty mystery that 
struck me dumb with awe ! 

Of the inclinations, salutations and genuflections ; 
of the vesting and unvesting ; the cope and mitre, the 
cruets, incense-boats and censers; of the candles, 
torches, missals; the ablutions and chiming bells; 
of the deep, ominous silence that fell upon us at in- 
tervals ; the elevations, the thrice solemn administra- 
tion of the Sacrament, and the sublime Benediction, 
I knew nothing, and less than nothing ; for I doubt- 
less misinterpreted very much of all that I saw and 
heard. But to see and hear was enough, and more 
than enough; my hungering and thirsting soul was 
fed with spiritual manna ; it could no longer content 
itself with husks. 

My master, who had been absorbed in his pro- 
fessional duties, turned to me when he at last lifted 
his hands from the organ. The great building 
was nearly empty; a few worshipers still knelt in 
the body of the church, or were grouped before the 
several altars; two sanctuary boys were carefully 



I 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 443 

and deliberately extinguishing the tapers upon the 
altar; a priest was kneeHng within the railing, and 
everywhere still floated the faint, blue filmy clouds 
that sweetened the air, so that it seemed to have 
blown softly from the gardens of paradise ! — and 
my master turned to me ! I could not speak ; I felt 
that my cheeks were colorless; and, as we walked 
away from the cathedral door, and were parting at 
the street corner, he said to me : " Well ! will you 
come again? " 

I had reared in my heart an ideal temple, a 
dream sanctuary and now with its crude and feeble 
symbolism, it had crumbled into ruins and utterly 
vanished before this august reality. This was re- 
ality indeed; and it was a reality of whose maj- 
esty I was fully conscious, though as yet I knew ab- 
solutely nothing of its marvellously beautiful sig- 
nificance. Would I come again? I nodded my 
head in token of assent; yet at that moment some- 
thing within me seemed to struggle against it and 
to raise a question of doubt. Is there anything 
in the wide world more tenacious of life than an 
inherited prejudice? 

I was groping in the dark when a little light 
threw a ray across my path, suddenly, unexpectedly, 
as if a star had fallen. One day, on the mantel- 
piece in our dining-room — shall I ever forget that 
mantel, or the corner of it on which the wee book 
in its brown paper cover was lying ! — I found a 
copy of "The Poor Man's Catechism." I had 



444 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

never before seen a Catholic catechism, nor any 
Catholic book whatever; but we had stores of anti- 
Catholic works, and the discovery of this little spy 
in the camp somewhat startled me. I at once took 
it away to my chamber and began to read it. 

I was on my guard when I turned the first pages 
of that homely little pamphlet; it was a poor and 
ragged thing, by no means calculated to prepossess 
any one in its favor. I was even inclined to be 
antagonistic when I began to read; but the sim- 
plicity and truth that shone from every page dis- 
armed me; the plain, direct questions and the plain, 
direct answers were just such as I had been longing 
to ask and to receive. Here they were in my own 
hands, to be asked as often as I chose, and an- 
swered immediately and always. I became pro- 
foundly interested; I could not lay down the little 
oracle till I had gone through it two or three times 
over. I read it first with curious interest; and aft- 
erward reread it, to make sure that I had read 
it aright; then read again, to clear some obscure 
point or to get the full meaning of certain passages. 
What a reading was that when, finally, I read it 
slowly and earnestly, asking myself after each sepa- 
rate answer, "Can you believe this?" ''Do you 
believe it?" After each and all of those answers 
I answered, triumphantly, " I can and I do ! " 

I resolved to become a Catholic at once; but how 
was I to begin? That was a question that I asked 
myself every hour in the day. Often I knelt in the 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 445 

church during day or evening, hoping some one 
would discover my anxiety by a sign and come to 
my relief. Often I went to the very door of the 
priests' house, and hung about there, not daring to 
knock, but trusting that I should ultimately attract 
the attention of the priests, and be met at least 
half way. I was always talking of the Church, 
stupidly and ignorantly, no doubt, but with honest 
enthusiasm; frequently I was ridiculed for my 
pains; and thus the time passed, and I was no 
nearer the longed-for goal than at the hour when 
I first opened the little brown pamphlet that 
helped me take the first step toward Truth. 

That Catechism I kept, and I have it still; I had 
a right to keep it, for none of us was ever able 
to ascertain when or how it came into the house. 
No owner was found for it, and no one knew 
who placed it upon the mantel. When it came into 
my possession I was the only one who had seen it 
or had knowledge of it. 

In time a friend introduced me to the Jesuit 
Fathers at St. Ignatius College. 

It was Father A — , of the Society of Jesus, who 
made my perplexing studies a delight. It was to 
him I confided the last vestige of the inborn prej- 
udice which so tenaciously clung to me. It was 
he who said to me " Read what you will, so long 
as you read earnestly and honestly the books I 
give you." 

And I read. The history, the philosophy, the 



446 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

poetry of the Church was gradually laid open to 
me. I felt as if I were entering a new world — 
a world full of mysterious beauty and fascination. 
I felt that I could never learn enough of this mar- 
vellous Church — never begin to know as much of 
it as I should know; but what perplexed me more 
than all was the false knowledge which I had to 
unlearn, the cruel misstatements which had to be 
corrected, and the latent, inborn prejudices which 
I must needs root out and trample underfoot. 

I believe any reasonable man can not read in con- 
nection a Catholic and an anti-Catholic work with- 
out discovering the logical truth of the one and the 
false pretences of the other. Childish and stupid 
seem to me the arguments of the Protestants; 
empty, vulgar and worthless the tirades of infidels 
and fanatical writers. I would not recommend any 
Catholic to read aught of those; they are vanity 
and vexation of spirit; they are full of subtle poi- 
son, that robs the heart of rest, of health, of hope 
— of everything. A single page of plausible false- 
hood may pervert an unprejudiced mind so that a 
whole volume of truth will hardly restore it ; there- 
fore leave them alone. 

I diligently prosecuted my studies with Father 

A , and had begun to see my w^ay clearly, to 

walk firmly in the path he led me, and to cling 
steadfastly to the hope of being received into the 
Church. The day came when this was accomplished, 
and I became a Catholic in deed and in truth. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 447 

Again and again, and yet again, I have been 
curiously questioned by those who could not follow 
in the path which led me away from my kinsmen 
and my comrades, and to whom the mysterious in- 
fluences which I found irresistible were unknown, 
or with whom they were of no avail. 

What my lips dared scarcely utter — for the 
decorous recital of an experience so precious to me 
demanded fit audience and a seasonable hour — 
my pen in the serene solitude of my chamber has 
now related unreservedly. 

O blessed task accomplished! I have set my 
lamp, though feeble be its flame, where perchance 
it may light the feet of some bewildered pilgrim. 
I have cast my bread upon the waters, hopefully 
awaiting the return — after many days. 



THE VERY REV. JAMES KENT, STONE, 
A.M., LL.D., D.D. 

In religion the Very Rev. Father Fidelis, Provincial of the 
Eastern Province of the Congregation of the Passionists ; son 
of the late Rev. Dr. John S. Stone, President of Cambridge 
Theological Seminary, and grandson of Chancellor Kent, au- 
thor of Kent's " Commentaries " ; graduate of Harvard, and 
student at Gottingen until the outbreak of the Civil War, when 
he returned home and enlisted as a private in the Second 
Mass. Regiment; became an Episcopal Clergyman, and was 
in succession President of Kenyon and Hobart Colleges; late 
Provincial of the Passionists in South America ; Appleton 
Preacher at Harvard, 1891 ; author of " The Invitation 
Heeded," from which this account is drawn. 

May God pardon my hasty pride, but I used to 
fancy myself quite free from prejudice, and boasted 
in my heart of a readiness to welcome truth wher- 
ever found, and to follow it in whatever hard path 
it might lead. I remember long ago copying a 
golden sentence from one who has done me more 
service than all other Anglican teachers com- 
bined — my beloved Richard Hooker — and how, 
in a figure, I hung the words as a memorial before 
my eyes : " If truth do anywhere manifest itself, 
seek not to smother it with glossing delusions; ac- 
knowledge the greatness thereof; and think it your 
best victory when the same doth prevail over you." 
If I may confess a thing so sacred, the prayers 

448 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 449 

which for years were oftenest on my lips were the 
beautiful Collects, which I had learned through the 
English Prayer-Book, petitions for the light of the 
Holy Spirit, that I might have a right judgment in 
all things; and that I might not only know what 
things I ought to do, but also have power faithfully 
to fulfil the same. The prayers were, indeed, gra- 
ciously answered ; but not according to the imperfect 
intention of him who uttered them. 

When the Letter Apostolic of Pope Pius the 
Ninth, " To all Protestants and other Non-Catho- 
lics," first came under my notice, I read it with 
interest, but, incredible though it now seems, with 
little other emotion than one of rather contemptu- 
ous pity for the august writer. I supposed that I 
had mastered the Roman question, which I always 
thought the greatest of all questions in theology or 
history; and imagined myself familiar with the 
strong ground upon which every true Catholic 
ought to stand. For I looked upon myself as a 
genuine Catholic — an Israelite indeed. I do not 
mean that I ever had any sympathy with the Ritu- 
alistic movement. I never could regard the leaders 
of that movement with any other feeling than one, 
I fear, of impatience. I considered them, I regret 
to say, the most illogical of all thinkers. If the 
Ritualists were right, the Reformers were wrong. 
The great sin of schism could never have been justi- 
fied by any such paltry differences as separate our 
" advanced " friends from the Roman Communion. 



450 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

The only consistent course for men to take who be- 
lieved in the Sacrifice of the Altar and in the Invo- 
cation of Saints was to go back, promptly and peni- 
tently, to the ancient Church which had proved its 
infallibility by being in the right after all. 

No; I defended the Anglican Reformation with 
all my soul. I did so upon what I called high 
ground, in company with such sturdy Catholics (so 
I termed them) as -Andrewes, and Bull, and Ham- 
mond. I threw myself back upon '' the primitive 
Church," and upheld the doctrinal standards of the 
Anglican Communion as faithfully reproducing the 
uncorrupted model. I loved this reformed Church, 
supposing her to be indeed Apostolic, both in suc- 
cession and in creed ; and, not knowing an older and 
a better, I gave her all my devotion (my eyes be- 
ing blinded), as the mother and mistress of my 
soul; and I hoped to die, as Bishop Ken declared 
that he died, " in the Holy, Catholic, and Apostol- 
ical Faith, professed by the whole Church before 
the disunion of East and West — more particularly 
in the communion of the Church of England, as it 
stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritan in- 
novation, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the 
Cross." 

The Responsio Anglicana of Bishop Wordsworth 
did not satisfy me. The writer, I thought, wasted 
his strength on minor points. It was not such an 
answer as I conceived Bishop Bull would have 
given; who, by one short move, would have carried 



1 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 45 1 

the war into Africa, and would have put the Bishop 
of Rome immediately on the defensive, by denounc- 
ing him as the innovator, the wanderer, the schis- 
matic, and by calling upon him to return to that 
Catholic Unity which the arrogance of his prede- 
cessors had first broken. 

Well, time went on; and I was not conscious of 
the smallest change in my theological opinions and 
sympathies ; when all at once the ground upon which 
I had stood, with such careless confidence, gave way. 
Like a treacherous island, it sank without warning 
from beneath my feet, and left me struggling in the 
side waters. Thanks be to God that I was not left 
to perish in that cold and bitter flood, and that my 
feet so soon rested for ever on the Eternal Rock! 
How it came about — by what intellectual process 
my position had been undermined — by what un- 
conscious steps my feet had been led to an unseen 
brink, I did not know. I was only aware of the 
sudden terror with which I found myself slipping 
and going, and the darkness which succeeded the 
swift plunge. 

So far as I can recall the order of impressions, 
the first intimation which I received of my inse- 
curity was the return to my mind, of some of the 
words of the Holy Father; they would not be dis- 
missed ; they haunted me uncomfortably : '^ Domini 
Nostri Jesu Christi, qui pro iniversi humani generis 
salute tradidit animam suam, caritate excitati et 
compulsi; " " id agimus, ut omni studio et caritate 



452 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

COS vel maxime moneamiis, exhortemiir, et obsecre- 
miis, lit serio considerare et animadvertere velint, 
num ipsi viam ah eodern Christo Domino prcescrip- 
tam sectentur, quce ad ceternam perdiicit saliitem/' 
There was something in the tone of this appeal 
which compelled me to listen. The image of the 
apostolic Pleader came up before me; I saw the 
beautiful, benignant face again, which I saw as a 
boy in Rome; I beheld the outstretched hand, ex- 
tended then in blessing, now in gracious invitation 
and entreaty: '' Errantinni Uliorum ad Catholic ce 
EcclcsicB rcversionem cxpansis munihus ardentissimc 
cxpcctamiis, lit cos in coclcstis Patris domiim aman- 
tissime excipcre, et inexhaustis ejus thesauris ditare 
possimiis." 

At the same time (strange that passages from 
such remote sources should appear in conjunction) 
a detached sentence from that extraordinary book, 
Ecce Homo, came floating into consciousness on 
some breeze of memory, and caught, and would not 
be brushed away : " Habit dulls the senses and puts 
the critical faculty to sleep." It suggested to me — 
whether legitimately or not, I am not sure; for I 
do not remember the context — the possibility that 
my familiarity with my position was no real as- 
surance of its impregnability, and further, that the 
very frequency with which I had gone over its de- 
fenses had rendered me incapable of detecting the 
weak points. There was a quick misgiving; I 
feared blankly that there were realities which others 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 453 

were able to see clearly, but from which my eyes 
were holden ; that there might be some deep under- 
tone of truth which I had never been able to catch, 
like the cosmic harmony of the ancients, which to 
gross mortal ears, alive to lesser but sharper sounds, 
was inaudible. I found myself reflecting upon the 
immeasurable influence of education, and how incal- 
culable must be the power over a mind of opinions 
imbibed from infancy through every pore and never 
counteracted. If these opinions were prejudices, how 
almost impossible would it be for truth to penetrate 
them ! I thought of the English language, in which 
I had learned to think and to express my thoughts ; 
and I remembered how for three hundred years that 
tongue had been one vast ceaseless attack upon the 
Roman Catholic Church ; how its literature was sat- 
urated with a spirit of the most deadly antagonism 
to that Church, not in the department of theology 
only, but of history, and poetry, and travels and 
fiction, aye ! and the very primers in the hands of 
the little children. If such a fountain should prove 
to be poisoned, what effect might not be anticipated 
in those who all their lives had drunk of its streams ! 
All this passed through my mind more rapidly than 
I have been able to record it; and I felt my heart 
growing faint at a whisper — to which neverthe- 
less I listened intently — that perhaps I had pre- 
judged the case after all. 

The effect of this impression was soon after in- 
definitely increased by a passage of Moehler, which 



454 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

forcibly arrested my attention. Speaking of the 
delusions of the early heretics, the learned writer 
says : " There are certainly few who have studied 
the Gnostic errors, that are not seized with the deep- 
est astonishment, how their partisans could possibly 
deem their whimsical opinions, the fantastic forms 
of their demonology, and the rest, to be Christian 
Apostolic doctrines; and many a man among us 
perhaps believes, that he could in a single hour con- 
fute thousands of them by the Bible, and bring them 
back to pure Christianity; so much so indeed, that 
he is even disposed to accuse their then opponents 
of a want of dexterity, because they did not succeed. 
But, when once a peculiar system of moral life hath 
been called into existence, should it even be com- 
posed of the most corrupt elements, no ordinary 
force of external proofs, no conclusions of ratiocina- 
tion, no eloquence, are able to destroy it; its roots 
lie mostly too deep to be pervious to mortal eye: 
it can only perish of itself, become gradually ex- 
hausted, spend its rage, and disappear. But, as 
long as it flourishes, all around is converted into 
a demonstration in its favor: earth speaks for it, 
and the heavens are its warranty. Meanwhile, a 
new age, with another spirit and other elements of 
life, springs up : this, without any points of internal 
contact with the past, is often at a loss to compre- 
hend it, and demands w4th astonishment how its 
existence had been possible. But, should Divine 
Grace, which can alone kindle the opposite true life, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 455 

succeed in delivering one individual from such er- 
rors, then he expresses the incomprehensible and in- 
conceivable nature of his former state, by saying 
that he had been, as it were, enchanted, and that 
something, like scales, had fallen from his eyes." 

I remember how St. Augustine, " one of the pro- 
foundest thinkers of antiquity," even for four years 
after he had become a catechuman under St. Am- 
brose, was entangled in the meshes of the Mani- 
chsean heresy. I admitted instantly that I, too, 
might be under a spell ; that my case might be — I 
do not dare to say like that of the great Saint 
and Father, but that of the Donatists or the 
Gnostics; since I was certainly not more posi- 
tive in my convictions than they, neither could 
I furnish myself with any satisfactory reason 
for believing that I was blessed with greater light. 
And then the Hand of God drew back the veil of 
my heart; and I saw for the first time, and all at 
once, how utterly steeped I had been in prejudice, 
how from the beginning I had, without a question 
or suspicion, assumed the very point about which 
I ought reverently to have enquired with an im- 
partial and docile mind. I had studied the Roman 
controversy; so I thought — if in my short life I 
could fairly be said to have studied anything; but 
how had I studied it ? Had there ever been a time 
when it was an open question in my mind whether 
the claims of the Roman Church were valid ? Had 
I begun by admitting that the Pope might be right ? 



456 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Had it ever crossed my thoughts that the Church 
in communion with the See of Peter might be in- 
deed the one only CathoHc Church of our Lord Jesus 
Christ? And had I ever resolved, with all my 
soul, as one standing on the threshold and in the 
awful light of eternity, to begin by tearing down 
every assumption and divesting myself of every 
prejudice, and then, wherever truth should lead the 
w^ay, to follow — '' leave all arid follow " ? Alas ! 
never. I had studied simply to combat and re- 
fute. The suggestion that " Romanism " might 
after all be identical with Christianity was pre- 
posterous. The Papacy was the great Apostacy, 
the mystery of iniquity; it was the masterpiece of 
Satan, who had made his most successful attack 
upon the Church of God by entering and corrupting 
it. The rise of the Papal pretensions was matter of 
the plainest history; and every well-instructed child 
could point out how one fiction after another had 
been grafted into the creed of that apostate Church, 
until now the simple faith of early days was scarce 
recognizable under the accumulated error of centu- 
ries. '' History " — who wrote that history? 
" Well-instructed child " — why, that was the very 
point at issue! 

Of course I had not yet begun to examine and 
appreciate the Catholic argument (I may as well 
use the word at once as synonymous with Roman 
Catholic) ; I merely saw that there had been an ap- 
peal, and that the case which I had supposed settled 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 457 

had been carried into a higher court. The decision 
of the past had not been reversed; but it might be 
reversed. I discovered that I had been laboriously 
building without thoroughly inspecting my founda- 
tion, and that I would have to do my work all over 
again. I saw that I had committed '' the very 
illogical mistake " against which I had often warned 
young men under my instruction, the error of those 
who first canvas " all the objections against any 
particular system whose pretensions to truth they 
would examine, before they consider the direct argu- 
ments in its favor." I saw that I had been guilty 
of what Bossuet calls " a calumny," and what I 
now acknowledged to be an act of injustice, namely, 
of charging upon Catholics inferences which I had 
myself drawn from their doctrines, but against 
which Catholics indignantly protest. I could not 
say with St. Augustine that " I blushed with joy," 
but with shame I blushed, *' at having so many 
years barked not against the Catholic faith, but 
against the fictions of carnal imaginations. For so 
rash and impious had I been, that what I ought by 
enquiring to have learned, I had pronounced on, 
condemning. ... I should have knocked and 
proposed the doubt, how it was to be believed, not 
insultingly opposed it as if believed." 

This is the " plunge " I spoke of. I used the 
word because it expressed, as well perhaps as any 
other, the terrifying rapidity which marked the steps 
of my intellectual crisis. Upon some men the dis- 



458 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

covery of a life-long error may break gradually; 
truth may be said to have its dawning; but to me it 
came with a shock. The rain descended and the 
floods came; my house fell; and great was the fall 
of it. 

Then followed a sense of blank desolateness. I 
was groping among ruins; and wherewith should 
I go to work to build again? I do not mean that 
I faltered. Thank God that He kept me true, and 
suffered me not to shrink from the sharp agony 
w^hich I perceived was possibly in store for me. 
To borrow words of the great Father from whose 
experience I have already drawn, *' God gave me 
that mind, that I should prefer nothing to the dis- 
covery of truth, wish, think of, love naught be- 
sides." But the task of reconstruction seemed al- 
most hopeless. 

I began by taking note of, and ruling out, all con- 
siderations which could conceivably stand in the 
way of an impartial investigation. I challenged the 
witnesses. On the one hand, I put aside such as 
these: cherished opinions; hallowed associations; 
the intellectual and social accumulations of my life 
thus far; a useful and honorable position; fair 
hopes, and plans long pondered ; the grief of hearts 
more dear than hopes, or plans, or life itself. On 
the other side, I had to be on my guard against — 
what? Aye, what! Ah, dear souls! who can talk 
so bravely about the fascinations of Romanism and 
the duty of resisting its seductive charms, what do 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 459 

you know of the anguish of a heart that is called 
to give up all for truth, and is ready, if need be, 
to make the sacrifice? No; on the side of the 
Church of Rome there was absolutely nothing — 
unless, indeed, it might be some attraction lurking 
in the very completeness of the immolation. Well, 
there might be something in this; so I marked, it 
down as a danger to be carefully watched against. 

And so I set my face forward with desperate 
earnestness ; and in due time — it may seem, a very 
short time — I had not a trace of doubt left that I 
had all along been a vain enemy of the One, Catho- 
lic, and Apostolic Church. Why not in a short 
time? Why not in a month, or a week, or a day? 
Is it any reflection upon Truth that she surrenders 
herself quickly to a soul whose every nerve is 
strained in her pursuit ? Is it any argument against 
the Church of God that it is easily identified? 
Surely, if there be a Kingdom of Heaven upon 
earth, it must be known by marks which cannot be 
mistaken. Yes! I knew it when I had found it. 
And I found it as in the parable, like a treasure 
hidden in a field — in the self-same field up and 
down which I had wandered for years, and where 
I had often trampled it under my feet. And when 
I had found it, I hid it, scarce daring to gaze at its 
splendor,^ and crying, as St. Augustine cried, " Too 
late, alas ! have I known thee, O ancient and eternal 
Truth!" And then, for joy thereof, I went and 
sold all that I had, and bought that field. 



MARIA LONGWORTH STORER, 

CINCINNATI, OHIO. 

Wife of the Hon. Bellamy Storer, late Ambassador to Austro- 
Hungary. 

My parents, Mr. Joseph Longworth (my father), 
and my mother ( who was a daughter of Dr. Landon 
Cabell Rives, of Virginia) were both communi- 
cants of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Cin- 
cinnati, to which town my grandfather, Nicholas 
Longworth, had come in the year 1805. 

I was brought up and confirmed in the Episcopal 
Church, and we belonged to the *' High Church " 
school. I retained always the faith of that Church, 
but as I grew older, the service did not satisfy me. 
I thought that I could read and pray better at 
home, and attendance on Sunday to hear the serv- 
ice and sermon seemed entirely unnecessary. It 
seemed to me something like going simply to a 
lecture-room which was interesting or dull accord- 
ing to the preacher. 

I liked the Religious Orders of the Catholic 
Church and gave habitually to CathoHc charities be- 
cause I knew that the money would go directly to 
the poor. 

I began to think seriously of the Catholic faith 
and religion only after a summer spent in Brittany, 

460 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 46 1 

where the chaplain of a convent where we were 
staying, preached a sermon on the Holy Eucharist. 
I had never understood that Sacrament before. 

The next year, October, 1891, we went to live in 
Washington, my husband having been elected to 
Congress. The day after our arrival, I drove out 
to the Catholic University to hear Bishop Keane 
lecture upon the Encyclical of Pope Leo on Labor. 
I was so impressed that I got all the Encyclicals of 
the late Pope and read them with deep interest. 
A few weeks later, Mr. Storer and I went to High 
Mass at St. Augustine's Church, simply to hear the 
music. A prelate, who was a stranger to us, 
preached a sermon on the dignity of labor and the 
duties of Catholics, which we considered the best 
sermon we had ever listened to. On inquiring the 
name of the preacher, we were told that he was 
Archbishop Ireland of St. Paul. 

In Advent of the same year, I went to hear 
Bishop Keane preach a series of sermons. On 
Christmas day, I suddenly decided to write to the 
Bishop and ask for some Catholic books. He very 
kindly sent me some, which I studied with much 
profit to myself. On June 26, 1892, I received 
conditional baptism, and Confirmation from Bishop 
Keane at the Catholic University. 

My daughter, Miss Margaret Rives Nichols had 
attended a history class during the winter taught 
by Father Daugherty, S.J., Vice-Rector of George- 
town University. She was received into the 



462 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Church at Georgetown in April, 1892, two months 
before my reception. She married three years later 
the Marquis de Chambrun, a great-great-grandson 
of Lafayette. They live in France. 

Mr. Storer was interested in the Church after 
my conversion. We hired a house at Westport on 
Lake Champlain for the summer of 1896. There 
we saw nearly every day the priest of the parish, 
Father F. X. Lachance, one of the most devoted 
servants of the Lord whom I have ever known; 
who drove eighteen miles and back, fasting every 
Sunday, in order to serve the Church at Elizabeth- 
town as well as Westport. All the non-Catholics 
of Westport were devoted to Father Lachance, for 
he had changed a rather lawless population into re- 
spectable and law-abiding citizens. 

I think the sight of such a life, and acquaintance 
with this priest, gave Mr. Storer the final human 
impulse: for Father Lachance gave him conditional 
baptism at the little Westport church before we 
left, in September, 1896. Mr. Storer w^as con- 
firmed by Archbishop Elder in October of the same 
year. 



MISS SUSIE T. SWIFT. 

Graduate of Vassar; late Brigadier of the Salvation Army, 
head of the Auxiliary League of America, and editor of 
" All the World." She was a pioneer in the work among 
the waifs of London, establishing the Newsboys' Home in 
Fleet Street. She is known in religion as Sister M. 
Imelda Teresa, O. P., of the Congregation of St. Cath- 
erine di Ricci, Directress of the Dominican College of 
Our Lady Help of Christians, Havana, Cuba. 

" How can I write the story of my conversion? " 
I asked of Fr. Pardow, SJ., a few months after 
my baptism. ** Fm beginning to think I don't know 
it myself. I hear one priest tell it, and all he says 
it true, and I read an item in a Catholic paper which 
is quite true, too, but tells something entirely dif- 
ferent. Frs. Van Rensselaer and Doyle and Searle 
all had a hand in it, and each of them sees it in an 
entirely different light from the others, while your 
Fr. Browne says that I don't put enough stress on 
the part the medal of the Immaculate Conceptio 
played in it. I never even thought of the medal 
having to do with it." 

Father Pardow smiled tranquilly. " It is all a 
matter of point of view," he said. " You are too 
near the event to describe it. In a few years, as 
you climb further up the hill, you will look down 
and you will write an account altogether different 
463 



464 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

from the one you give now. All the same, write 
this one, and don't mind, if people call you incon- 
sistent, later. Each account will appeal to those 
who stand on the spot from which each is written." 

And truly, looking back to-day, the events of 
my crowded years in the Salvation Army, which 
occupied so large a space in the vision of the Catho- 
lic public which rejoiced and the Protestant public 
which lamented my conversion seem to me to hold 
fewer milestones on my '' Road to Rome " than 
certain moments in my life as girl and student, be- 
fore I wore the blue and silver which, indeed, 
passed me in safety through many a danger-spot 
in London or Chicago slums, but which meant little 
soul activity. Nor have I to tell how I grew out 
of Protestantism so much as how I grew into Ca- 
tholicism. 

In childhood, there was at first, no sense of dis- 
cord between the God before Whom one knelt, bolt 
upright, while reciting memory prayers to mamma 
or auntie, who corrected emphasis and elocution, 
and the Jesus to Whom, later on, cuddled close to 
the wall, one told all the happenings of the day. 
But there came an hour, one winter night, in a 
lonely room, when, looking out at gray mountains 
overarched by a gray sky which spread over miles 
of unbroken snow I felt what it was to stand alone 
with God in His universe, and realized the Majesty 
of the Father. Life seemed to space itself out be- 
fore me. How petty seemed my anthropomorphic 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 465 

conceptions of a God! I felt that I had discovered 
traces of a new religion, which was worth hunting 
for all one's life. Beyond those mountains lay, all 
unknown to me, the Eucharistic God of Whom I 
had never even heard in my ten years of life. But 
He waked in my heart that night the hunger which 
was never satisfied till the hour of my First Com- 
munion — the hunger which was to make me bold 
enough to cut loose, bit by bit, from all conven- 
tion and all tradition. 

For some years, the manifestations of this new- 
born hunger were hardly gratifying to my relatives. 

" How do you know the Bible is true? " I asked. 
" Anybody could write a book and say it was all true. 
You don't KNOW. And if the Bible isn't true, 
none of it is true, and there isn't any Heaven, per- 
haps, or any God at all, and if there isn't, I don't 
want to live myself." 

My family fell back on authority. 

" Papa believes the Bible. Can't his little girl be- 
lieve what he believes ? " 

NO. But she could keep silent and hide her 
suffering, that he might not suffer. And she did. 

I read and re-read all the mildly pious literature 
I could find in a not over devout but fairly " ortho- 
dox " family, and I attended the Methodist, Presby- 
terian and Episcopal Churches by turns, till I went 
to boarding school, and added the pleasing varieties 
of the Universalist and Congregationalist. I read 
Barnes' Sermons for the Young, bits of Clarke's 



466 SOME ROADS TO R0:ME in AMERICA 

Commentaries, jMoody's Sermons, even snatches of 
Butler and Hooker, struggling to find out how 
souls came into personal and permanent relation- 
ship with God. I discovered that I had never been 
baptized, and asked for the sacrament, only to be 
told that my mother had suffered so much from 
having been baptized in one church in infancy and 
wishing to unite with another when she grew up, 
that she had decided never to fetter me. Baptism 
meant only that you decided to join a certain 
church. I must wait for it till my " teens," at 
least. 

I struggled at fourteen, through a " conversion " 
under the guidance of George A. Halls. 

" Just give yourself to God, as you would give 
me that glove, if I asked for it," he said, picking 
up the bit of lavender kid. 

'' That is different," I objected. *' I could get 
another glove to-morrow. But if I give myself to 
God to-night, I may want to take myself back to- 
morrow. Beside, what difference would it make? " 

'' Oh, no " — serenely — " you won't want to 
take yourself back. He will keep you. The dif- 
ference? All the difference. He will take care of 
His own." 

I knew four volumes of Methodist catechism by 
heart and had studied the Berean course for five 
years. But I was left to the mercy of any chance 
evangelist for all the experimental part of religion — 
for all that is taught to a Catholic child before its 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 467 

first Communion, and in which a fair number are tu- 
tored at least up to mature life through the direc- 
tion of the confessional! My emancipation from 
that kind of teaching came through a sentence in 
one of Moody's sermons. Mr. Moody represented 
to me, as to many wiser people than I, thirty years 
ago, orthodox Christianity at its best. Here, as in 
most of my mental revolts against the religion of 
my childhood, I was wholly Catholic in instinct, 
though destitute of any dogmatic basis for my in- 
tuition. 

" Oh, what will a lost soul do in the swellings 
of Jordan?" queried Mr. Moody, and his reply 
left no loophole for a deathbed conversion. 

" Even there," I wrote in my diary, " It may 
turn to the Love which can never fail. It may look 
to the Jesus who died." 

Moody and what he represented went by the 
board. Miracles followed. On the way home from 
a boarding school expedition after chestnuts, I 
walked close to my favorite teacher and said, 

" Miss , do you believe that Lazarus was very 

dead?" 

"Why? Don't you?" she answered. 

" No," came the answer, with an effort which 
shook my whole frame. " I don't. I think he was 
in a trance." 

She paused. " But do you realize ? " she asked, 
slowly, " that Jesus certainly either believed he was 
dead or intended that people should think so? 



468 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

That if Lazarus was not ' very dead/ Jesus was 
either a mere man, capable of making mistakes, or 
an impostor? Are you prepared to accept all the 
consequences of your disbelief in that miracle ? " 

" I have thought of all," I answered, '* and I 
am prepared for all." " Then," she said, " I have 
no reply to make to you. My relation to your par- 
ents, who DO believe it, and who trust you to me, 
give me no right to make one. I am sorry for you, 
with all my heart. You have before you a path of 
great suffering. I can only say that you will have 
my love and my sympathy, and that I will help 
you in all ways in which I honorably can." 

Years after, I sought her out and told her that 
I was to be baptized a Catholic. '' What have you 
to say to me now? " I asked. 

*' I have to say," she answered, " that the Roman 
Catholic Church is undoubtedly the one . founded 
by Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, if Jesus is God, 
that is the true and only Church of God. All logic 
and all history show that. What has astonished 
me has been that you, with your logical mind, could 
believe that He was God and yet not be a Catholic. 
That has puzzled me ever since you were twenty- 
one." 

Slowly, the logic of life forced me to believe in 
God. Suffering and grief made me cry out to Him, 
and He answered. Bit by bit, before I graduated 
from Vassar, which I entered as an " agnostic," I 
had decided that I " believed more than I disbe- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 469 

lieved " in Christianity, and had been baptized and 
presented for confirmation by the rector of Christ 
Episcopal Church, Poughkeepsie, carefully explain- 
ing that my action was purely a scientific experi- 
ment, and that I was following out the method 
taught me in chemistry by applying the series of 
reagents in use in Episcopalian Christianity — bap- 
tism, confirmation and Holy Communion. At this 
time and for many years after, it was with me as 
with Fr. Darlington, SJ. 

" An a priori argument had little weight for a 
mind which had not been trained in metaphysics. 
Experience was my guide, and to experience alone 
could I trust." ("City of Peace" P. 71.) 

Of psychology and ethics, next to nothing was 
taught at Vassar in those days. The inadequacy 
of the courses (?) in history was remarkable. It 
was hardly my fault that I went out into life ex- 
cellently drilled in logic, but compelled to work, in 
all matters of conduct and religion, on premises like 
the closet naturalist's camel — ** Evolved from my 
inner consciousness." 

Only two books out of the immense number read 
during my four college years had any direct in- 
fluence on my Romeward course — a life of St. 
Ignatius, by the Anglican Isaac Williams, which 
gave me an ideal of all-consuming activity in 
God's interests such as satisfied my restless, passion- 
ate nature, and Newman's " Grammar of Assent." 

" If you say * Yes ' to the first page," said the 



470 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

tutor who recommended it, *' you must say * yes ' 
right through the book, and then you will be a 
Catholic. So say ' No ' at the first page, and all the 
way through/' 

This seems to me the spirit in which I read many 
a Catholic book, in the following years! 

My attitude toward the Church at this time was 
that it w^as a beautiful impossibility, so completely 
intellectually impracticable that there was no slight- 
est danger in studying its lovely, outworn myths. 
My first respect for it came through an experience 
which I have seldom mentioned even to my intimate 
friends. 

That first sacrament — Baptism — " worked " in 
me in a virulent kind of way which might justify the 
tendency I have always found in the untutored mind 
to confuse it with vaccination. Its result had been 
a sense of sin which I regarded as a proof of its 
utter inefficiency. Day and night, through my gay 
senior year at College, I was burdened with a sense 
of guilt; with a conviction, as I put it afterward, 
that " all my bright, innocent girl-life was black 
with sins of selfishness and worldliness, if with no 
worse." 

It was in this state of mind that I went out to 
teach in a fashionable boarding school. I was very 
far from being an oppressed, Jane Eyre kind of 
person, and despite my lady-principal's remon- 
strances, insisted in driving myself about the 
country-side of an afternoon. As she predicted, I 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 471 

came to grief with a spirited horse. Great was my 
disappointment, when I opened my eyes after the 
flight through the air which I had beheved meant 
instant death. 

" Do you think you are fit to die ? " asked a 
horrified Methodist fellow teacher. 

" No," I answered. " But I think I am far less 
fit to live, and I am more afraid of living than of 
dying." 

My family insisted on my breaking my contract 
and going to Europe to recuperate. Conscience 
told me that I was quite able to finish the school 
year. While the matter was under discussion, I 
stopped in one day to look at St. Patrick's Cathe- 
dral, then quite new. An inspiration seized me. 
Catholic priests were always settling questions of 
conscience. Why not ask one whether my duty, 
in the present case, was to family or employer? 
The sacristan told me to go to a certain number on 

Madison Avenue, and ask for Fr. McD. whom, I 

afterward learned was then secretary to Archbishop 
Corrigan. In he came — strait soutane, clean- 
shaven, ascetic face, " cut out of ice," I said, and 
bringing with him an atmosphere as bracing as 
that of the North Pole. He had little to say to 
what seemed to me the point at issue. But he 
leaped at once at the fact that my religious system 
gave me no basis from which to settle my ethical 
perplexities. Before I left, he had compelled my re- 
spect for whatever system had produced himself, had 
31 



472 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

rooted deep in my mind the convictions that sin was 
something more than error or ignorance, that the 
creature who admitted the existence of a Creator 
tacitly admitted duties toward Him, and that the 
^ doctrine of the Trinity was not necessarily unrea- 
/sonable, because it transcended reason. I have 
often wondered if the young priest did not think 
he wasted two hours that day. But in point of 
fact, though he has never known it, the morning's 

work of the present Bishop of B was very fair 

in amount, while as to durability, it has lasted 
twenty-two years and has never needed redoing. 
It will, I think, endure, '' till face to face strikes 
doubting dumb." Eighteen years after, I put the 
" Faith of our Fathers," which he gave me that 
day, into the library of the Dominican Convent 
where I was Mistress of Novices. 

My account of the interview, however, settled the 
European trip. My family whisked me off with 
little time to buy books for the voyage. But New- 
man's Poems went with me, and the '' Dream of 
Gerontius " did more for me than the " Grammar 
of Assent," for it gave a brief, strong creed : 

" Firmly I believe and truly, 
God is Three and God is One; 
And I next acknowledge duly, 
Manhood taken by the Son. 
And I trust and hope most fully 
In that Manhood Crucified, 
And each thought and deed unruly- 
Do to death, as He has died. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 473 

Simply to His grace and wholly, 
Light and life and strength belong, 
And I love, supremely, solely, 
Hdm the Holy, Him the strong." 



In Scotland, in 1884, I met the Salvation Army. 
I have told so often, from the pulpit and platform, 
with voice and pen, what that meeting then meant 
to me, that I do not think I need repeat it here. 
To those who find it hard to understand how an 
Episcopalian of " High " tastes could work with the 
Army, I answer that the Army taught in those days 
that it was '' not a church, but a mission," and 
placed no obstacle in the way of my receiving the 
sacraments (?) of my own or any other denomi- 
nation. To those who do not see how an educated 
person can work with the Salvationists, I simply 
say that they do not know the Army's leaders, or 
the freedom of thought and mental activity per- 
mitted to those officers who prove that they can 
make a wise use of liberty. Into the London Head- 
quarters to which my sister and I vv^ere at- 
tached, are drawn the most intelligent organizers 
whom the '' General " can select from all lands. 
I used to say, at first, that education must destroy 
originality, so marvellous were the intellects around 
me, and so manifestly untrained in ordinary peda- 
gogic ways. Many highly educated men and 
women surround the leaders — men and women 
for the most part like my old self — all un- 
taught in history or metaphysics, but clever lin- 



474 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

guists, fair scientists, brilliant popular writers, argu- 
ing backward from the rapid results of Salvationism 
to causes which are far enough afield, wonderfully 
skilled in pulling the '' Cords of Adam " to ad- 
vantage. For twelve years I worked with them. 
No woman living knows the Salvation Army better 
than I do. If I shudder to-day at remembering 
much that I saw, and knew, and even aided in, it 
is not because the Army is worse than other Prot- 
estant organizations. I believe it is better. But 
it is less bound by traditions handed down from 
CathoHc days and, in the main, wholesome; and it 
is an absolutely consistent form of Protestantism. 
Its so-called likenesses to the Catholic Church are 
purely superficial and governmental. Port Royal, 
at its worst, was never narrower or bitterer than we 
sweetfaced *' Training Home Lassies " who were 
actually taught to say *' Thank God, we are not as 
other women." God permitted it all, I am sure, 
I did, in those years, what I honestly believed was 
His will, and since He brought me out ''into a 
wealthy place," I can never doubt the power of His 
converting grace to reach those who seem most 
hedged in by adverse circumstances. 

In February, 1897, I wrote my letter of resig- 
nation from New York to Mr. Bramwell Booth, of 
London, who had for years been my spiritual di- 
rector as well as my superior officer, having taken 
upon himself the guidance of a character which pre- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 475 

sented some difficulties to his father, the '* Gen- 
eral," but which the '' Chief " had never failed to 
understand or to manipulate with ease until the day 
when I presented myself before him with much 
fear and trembling, only to find, with a surprise 
which had in it almost an element of grief, that he 
was absolutely powerless against a soul armored 
in sacramental grace. Father Doyle, C.S.P. has 
told me since, that till he read that letter at my re- 
quest, " to see if I say anything heretical," he had 
no idea " that the fruit was ripe for plucking." I 
meant to be perfectly frank with him, but I felt so 
great a horror of the overwrought rhetoric of Sal- 
vationism that my words to him on religious matters 
were always few and apparently cold, for the effort 
of expressing my new experiences was always 
torture till I poured them out in the only safe 
place — behind the dear confessional curtain. 

That letter was, indeed, so full a revelation of 
myself in innermost relations to God that for years 
the fear of its publication was my nightmare. 
Now, that old life is, in itself, only the dream from 
which it seems incredible that I should not have 
waked sooner, and the letter, stained yet with my 
hot tears, seems so Protestant in tone that I only 
use it because its Methodistic phraseology may 
make it more intelligible to those who stand on the 
threshold where I lingered for so many years. I 
give it almost. entire, with only a few annotations: 



476 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Feb. 23rd, 1897. 

My dear Chief: 

I do not know how to say what I have to 
tell you in any way that will not grieve you at first. 
I have put off saying it to the last possible moment, 
and I put myself wholly into your hands — saving 
as yet unforeseen dictations of my conscience — 
as to the results of my communication up to June 
first. 

God has called me to break my life sharply in two 
again, as I did when I came to you twelve years 
ago. It is harder now in one way. A girl of 
twenty-two can dare much that a woman of thirty- 
four shrinks from. And I knew, then, that my 
father would never let me want a home. Now, his 
life must be a matter of a few years, and I must 
learn a new^ w^ay to earn my bread. 

With heart and soul and conscience and will, I 
am a Catholic. 

That in itself will tell you that I go to no easier 
path. Rome has no prizes for women. The 
Church offers no inducements to converts. But in 
these years with you, I have learned to love our 
Lord Jesus Christ supremely, and I would rather 
die in the Charity Hospital on Blackwell's Island, 
free to worship my Savior in his own appointed 
way for me, than to have the wealth of Helen 
Gould or the opportunities of Frances Willard or 
of your own mother, and stand in spirit where I 
did three months ago. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 477 

I love the Army. I love you. I suffer far more 
in leaving you all than I did in giving up friends 
and home and country to come to you. I have re- 
gained most of the old friends and made hundreds 
of new ones. Now, I must surrender both. I 
have not a Catholic friend on this side the water 
whom I ever saw before Dec. 29, and only fragile 
old Mrs. Drummond on the other (Hon. Mrs. 
Drummond, mother of Mr. Lister Drummond so 
well known for his work in the Guild of Our Lady 
of Ransom for the Conversion of England). But 
I just fall on the knees of my soul in wonder and 
praise to the God Whose Presence in the midst of 
a conflict as sharp as it was short, has been so real, 
and Whose voice has been so clear that I have not 
dared to doubt His will, and have never for one 
hour since January third, thought of drawing back 
from the Via Dolorosa of the convert. 

You will remind me of the opportunities for help- 
ing souls which I am flinging away. No, dearest 
long-time Leader ! I can only help souls — only 
really serve the world, as you yourself have taught 
me — by and in obedience to God. ... I feel 
it is only right to you and the General and to C. 
C. — ^to whom I earnestly ask you to show this 
letter — to give you an outline map of the road by 
which I have come, though indeed, I can no more 
hope that most people will understand my motives 
than can those souls who enter the Army as I did, 
urged on by that compelling voice of God's Spirit 



478 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Whose note of authority is only comprehended by 
the one to whom He speaks. 

Before I even met the Army, a priest had, as I 
have told you before, prepared my mind for its 
teachings by convincing me of sin and by forcing 
me to acknowledge that the doctrines of the Trinity 
and the Incarnation were not incompatible with 
reason, although not to be apprehended by the in- 
tellect. , . . During the summer and winter 
after every ray of human happiness faded out of 
my life, my mode of religion failed me, too. Fa- 
ber's '' Spiritual Conferences " and '' Growth in 
Holiness " fell into my hands. They helped — 
nothing else had — No one did, except C. C, and 
all his helpful counsels matched with Faber. I told 
him so, and he warned and argued me out of any 
personal contact with the Church and managed to 
keep me so busy in office and corps that I had little 
time even for books. But prayer led me on, prayer 

and care for the soul of . I used to ask God to 

accept my soul for his, and to withdraw all grace 
from me and give him a double portion that he 
might . . . have an abundant entrance into 
that Heaven which I felt he was in horrible danger 
of never entering. I got wonderful comfort from 
the Catholic doctrine of impetration and from try- 
ing to offer up my very sorrow to God as a prayer 
in act and will for his soul. This I got on the track 
of through a poem of Adelaide Procter's and later, 
in 1893, through a sermon in the Church of the 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 479 

Holy Name, Manchester, where I went on a free 
Sunday evening, when too tired out for a Salvation 
Army meeting. That was the only Catholic sermon 
except one (while on rest) that I heard while I was 
with you in England. I have only heard four 
since. 

For the last five years, I have, as I think you and 
all my Army intimates of high rank know, been 
greatly concerned over what seemed to me the lack 
of provision for the saint-i-fying and keeping in 
real self-knowledge of our own people. Confession 
and Communion, as they were linked and used in 
High Church parishes like St. Peter's of the Docks, 
seemed to me to supply a want which our " penitent 
forms " and " personals " for soldiers and officers 
only imperfectly met. This thought has been stead- 
ily in my mind, though I never dreamed where 
pondering and prayer would lead me. 

But, oh, dear Chief, no reasonings have brought 
me here. Just God has constantly called me on 
by sudden illuminations. Reason has followed 
faith. 

At a " Two Days with God " ^ in Dec, 1890, the 
blackness of darkness settled down on my soul. 
It lasted for three months, during which, though 
with a will steadily set to do God's will and 
not conscious of having grieved Him, I could 
not realize His Presence for an instant. Search- 

1 A "Two Days With God" is a S. A. Holiness Con- 
vention. 



480 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

ing my soul one night, He seemed to say: 
" Will you come out from the Army and be a 
Catholic if I ask it ? " " Yes, Lord," I answered. 
The clouds broke. Peace came. But He said: 
" Not yet," and I went on, coming to regard the 
episode as a mere test of obedience in spirit. 
Later on, about two years ago, the Life of St. 
Teresa — or her prayers for me — stirred my 
mind to^ questions. But dear Mrs. Drummond, 
who was then a staunch Salvationist, laid my fears 
and perplexities, and I was horrified when my sis- 
ter said to the General what I regarded as cruelly 
false — that I was a Catholic at heart. It hurt 
me. I thought I held only such Catholic doctrine 
as lay at the very foundation of Christianity, was 
brought out in the Salvation Army, and obscured 
in Protestantism. Honestly, Chief, I have told 
you my whole heart from time to time, so far as 
I knew it myself. 

When I came to America last spring, I had to 
go into the depths of our principles — of inter- 
nationalism, of unity in faith, of surrender of in- 
dividualism for the sake of membership in a Spirit- 
guided body. I found these based on the Bible, 
but these notes pointed out — the Church! I had 
to learn to know the souls of our officers as never 
before. I was touched by their good dispositions 
and intentions, horrified by their shallowness, their 
spiritual ignorance. I saw the need for them of 
the confessional, even without absolution. In- 



J 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 481 

deed, Commissioner Eva, Brigadier E. and I did 
little else than sit in the confessional in the North- 
west. 

I did not formulate this then. Else I should 
have told you. 

Then my mother died. She died the death of 
a saint, but my bev^ildered spirit said always, as I 
watched her, " She is dying, not like a Salvationist, 
but like a Catholic saint." I saw the craving of 
a soul in its last extremity for strong, sacra- 
mental help. I recognized her spirit over again 
when first I heard sung at Benediction: 

"Let me die, my lips repeating, 
Jesus, mercy, Mary, pray." 

Mother always prayed for her dear dead. I 
prayed for her. I spoke to her in God, not knowing 
that I followed Catholic teaching in so doing. I 
longed once more for Holy Communion that I might 
realize the Communion of Saints, and in it, even in 
a Protestant Church, I felt something strangely 
akin to the Real Presence. But all this only 
deepened my love for our dearest Lord, Who so 
evidently ministered to her, and who made the 
spiritual world so much nearer by her passing. 
My sister told me afterward that she felt a 
" strange separation of spirit from me over our 
mother's deathbed." This almost broke my heart 
at the time. I understand it now. But the soli- 
tude of soul in which I have been set has brought 



482 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

a nearness to God which has been worth all — all. 
And when my lips are unsealed from the silence 
which was at first a silence of bewilderment, and 
has, in the last weeks been a silence compelled by 
honor, I think I shall be able to spare my friends 
the pain of feeling that I am a " backslider " in 
heart or action. 

Then the ministerial controversy concerning the 
sacraments was forced upon me in New York, and 
again I studied Barclay's " Apology " and the New 
Testament, and again I came to my position of 
1884 — that the New Testament alone offered no 
ground for the view of the sacraments which ob- 
tains in most Protestant Churches; and that the 
New Testament interpreted by tradition taught 
the doctrine of the Catholic Church as to Baptism 
and Communion. I have never seen a possible 
Via Media in Episcopalianism since I thought on 
the matter at all. As I said to the General: 
" There is nothing for me between Salvationism 
and Catholicism." 

Just before this, I had been arguing with an Ad- 
ventist for the immortality of the soul on the 
ground of the universal belief of all Christians in 
all lands, and the impossibility of God letting His 
whole Church be so deceived, when it swept over 
me like a flood that this argument made against 
our non-sacramentarianism, and was really the old 
Augustinian argument, '' Semper^ ubique eadem." 

I felt I must sometimes go to the Lord's Supper 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 483 

and I did. One Sunday evening, I went out to go 
to a little mission of Trinity near by. It was 
closed, and I turned, instead, into the Church of 
St. Francis Xavier for Benediction. There, for 
the first time, I felt the possibility of believing that 
my Lord was present in a different way to that 
in which His Spirit makes Him present with 
His people everywhere. He was THERE. Surely, 
Chief, we know when God is specially present in a 
meeting, though the crowd does not. I believed 
because I discerned Him. Transubstantiation is 
to me parallel with the Incarnation — no whit 
more difficult to receive. But it came to me just 
like that first revelation of Jesus — a FACT mani- 
fested to my soul. I am not sure whether it was 
before or after this that Hon. Mrs. Drummond, 
who had been my sheet anchor of Protestantism, 
wrote me the grounds of her entrance into the 
Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church. In any 
case her letter did not specially appeal to me. I 
felt that the Spirit of God led her, from the tone 
of her letter, but as her course of action was based 
on reverence for Holy Scripture which I had never 
felt in the same way, her line of argument did not 
strike me. " Who guards, possesses," was the 
only sentence which fastened itself in my mind. 
But, remembering my never quite laid doubts, I 
asked for an interview with the priest she advised 
me to see, if I had any desire to seek instruction 
— Father Searle, a convert, a Harvard man, and 



484 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

professor of astronomy at the Catholic University 
of Washington. I prayed very much before I saw 
him, and I read a Httle five cent book of his. To 
my great surprise, it told me nothing new — only 
bore out the workings of my own mind. ... I 
saw Father Searle. He confirmed the logic of my 
train of thought in a cool, mathematical way, but 
wouldn't give me any more books. Said I was 
sufficiently well instructed and only needed prayer. 
My one crux : *' Did our Lord intend to establish a 
visible Church as well as an invisible Kingdom, 
could only be met by the illumination of grace. I 
said I had no time to pray, and he showed me 
patiently how such prayer as I needed could be 
a constant undercurrent of life, and that God could 
never have made such all-important knowledge de- 
pendent on study. 

So I went away and went to work^ and put all 
into God's hands, and He did not keep me waiting 
long. That was on December 26th. By New 
Year's dawn, I knew. I saw the Church as 
Christ's creation, just as I saw Him the Incarna- 
tion of God. What Church He founded, if any, 
did not want considering, I settled that, years ago, 
and resettled it, when I read Manning's biography. 
The Church of the Apostles could hardly be the 
one within which Heber Newton is let deny its "very 
existence, and wherein every shade of belief about 
the Word and His Words is allowed. There was 
no struggle that night, only a profound peace. The 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 485 

real agony began next day, when I got doggedly 
up — I was really prostrated with mental pain — 
and went down to Rose Hawthorne Lathrop's three 
little rooms in a tenement house, to look into a 
Catholic woman's eyes and ask her to pity and 
pray for me. We knew one another only through 
newspapers, but she took me in, and carried me 
off to another priest. Once I had jtold him that 
I was convinced, light came, joy, rapture. It has 
lasted for thirty-one days of a heaven on earth. 
It may not last like this; but its source will last. 

But such rapture can consist with many sepa- 
rate agonies — at thought of you — of my father 
— of C. C. — of the Consul (Emma Booth-Tuc- 
ker) and my American comrades — of souls who 
will not follow me on out of dawn into noonday, 
but drift back into the darkness whence I had led 
them — even at thought of myself again friend- 
less, homeless, penniless, professionless and cut off 
from all public work for Our Lord. 

I know no repudiation of past grace, but I shall 
have no chance to say so — God has led me on. 
I can never thank you enough for all you have been 
to me. But if I faltered or shrank, I should deny 
all you have taught me and drag our principles in 
the dust and Jesus would hide His face from me. 
I seek His will — His way. His work can be 
done with or without me. 

Archbishop Corrigan I have found a sufficiently 
broad-minded Christian gentleman to see the 



486 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Army's side as well as his own. He would not 
sanction any silent Catholicism, but he pondered, 
and decided that it would not be wrong for me to 
go on in a work where I was even forbidden to 
speak against Catholicism until June — the delay 
I begged for, especially since I needed instruc- 
tion. 

I have tried to think that I might avail myself 
of this permission to keep silence till June and 
gather a little strength, physical and spiritual, 
wherewith to go through the conflict which love 
will force upon me. But I find from my tours in 
the Northwest and in Boston that I cannot. My 
public meetings I can manage; but in hand to 
hand work with souls I often have to stop short 
where either your representative or a child of the 
Church ought to go on. I am largely jotting- 
down this letter in the intervals of officers' coun- 
cils, and never in my life did I love my comrades 
better nor did my heart go out more truly with 
most of our songs. 

" I love Him best of all. 

He is my dearest Friend. 
With His own blood He bought me, 

He'll keep me to the end. 
With His strong arm about me, 

I care not what befall ; 
He will not leave nor forsake me — 

I love Him best of all." 

"For the cross I am ready, 
Till I take my crown," 



. SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 487 

God is with you, dear Chief, I doubt it not. 
He has been with me. But he would leave me 
now if I did not accept the consequences of the 
splendid training I have had under you. At the 
risk of vexing you, I can but tell you that much 
of my future life will be spent in prayer that you, 
to whom God has given great illumination in as- 
cetics, and who have brought out prominently in 
all your personal work with your officers what I 
now know to be leading points of Catholic doc- 
trine, may yield your marvelous intellect wholly to 
the guidance of His Spirit, and surrendering the 
jurisdiction which is dearer to you than life, fall into 
line under the one Shepherd appointed by Christ. 
I never think of you without recalling the hymn 
for the conversion of St. Paul. 

"Oh Wisdom ordering all things 
In order strong and sweet, 
What nobler spoil was ever 
Cast at the Victor's feet?" 

I can conceive no greater conquest that the 
church could make in this generation than your- 
self, and I tremble before the thought of your 
awful responsibility for the souls which you shep- 
herd, while I love you with a love that has in h 
almost an" element of adoration. It seems pre- 
sumptuous of me to believe that God would show 
me what He has not (?) shown you; yet isn't it 

always the note of faith that it comes into the un- 
32 



488 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

likeliest heart ? — and I have needed so much from 
God of help and consolation. 

Formally, I suppose what I do is to offer you 
my resignation, to take effect from June ist, while 
holding myself in readiness to leave at a week's 
notice, if you desire me to sever from you at once. 
Dear Chief, my loved and honored leader, I wish 
I could find softer or more reverential words in 
which to say it. I know of no man made organ- 
ization for which I would leave the Salvation 
Army. . . But I believe I go to Christ's own 
Church and to His living Presence on earth. 
How can I hesitate ? I seek your own " Best." 
I do not believe that you will try to keep 
me.^ 

But if you do, or turn the weapons of my 
dearest earthly friendships, for your sister Eva, 
and for Eileen and for C. C. — against my soul 
I pray that I may die rather than turn back. I 
trust in the unfailing mercies of God to keep me, 
weakest soul that flies to Him, true to His call 
and His cross. ... I have wondered, in home- 
sick moments, whether you could not keep me as 
an employee. We do have Catholic employees. 
Or let me be a nurse in the Nursing Brigade for 
the slums, sending me to nurse Catholics only. 
Or let me study medicine, as Captain Isabel W. 
is to do and heal bodies among you. . . . But 

1 On the contrary, Mr. Bramwell said to me distinctly, " I 
would keep you by force, if I could." Author's note. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 489 

I do not suppose you can or will. And, indeed, I 
suppose I could not help trying to tell my old 
comrades what I feel and believe. And you, who 
do not yet believe, though I know you feel and see 
much as I do, could not sanction that. 

Still, may I not keep your friendship, and write 
you sometimes, and see you when you come to this 
country, out of which it is not likely I shall go 
again? I have no plans. I cannot yet expect to 
know God's plans for me. . . . Surely, my act, 
as I wrench myself away from all that has made 
life for me for so long, with only love for you and 
love for our common Lord in my heart, is not one 
which need make the gulf the General sets when He 
says : " They go out from us because they are not 
of us." I go because I read the innermost mean- 
ing of all he loves and teaches. It will not hurt 
— it will help — souls for you to think and speak 
and write kindly of me and to pray for me. 

I have told you all my human heart, with its 
clinging affection and its longing hopes. But for 
all the wealth of tenderness which I shower on 
you and the Consul and Eileen D. (may God deal 
with you as you deal with her!) and C. C. and 
R. and scores more than I dare dwell on in 
thought, I know no shade of doubt or fear, and no 
spiritual blessing I have ever known approached 
the rapture of access in prayer and of realization 
of God's spiritual presence everywhere, of His 
Real Presence in the barest or tawdriest little 



490 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

church, which I experience, and which I covet for 
those multitudes in Army ranks who are so much 
worthier of God's wondrous gift of faith than 
Yours lovingly, if no longer what you will call 
yours loyally, and still yours, soldier and servant of 
Christ, 

SUSIE SWIFT, Brigadier. 

That was nearly the end of the struggle. I 
sent the letter to Father Doyle to be mailed by 
him, and went home to my father's house, to 
breathe and pray for a week and to watch for a 
good opportunity of telling him. Meantime, a 
friend of years had w^'itten me from Dublin, tell- 
ing me that she knew me too well not to detect a 
strange something in my letters. What was it? 
Was I going to marry out of the Army ? She was 
making herself sick about it. I wrote her, pledg- 
ing her to the strict secrecy she had already of- 
fered. I had forgotten that she held the rank in 
the Army which forbids its possessor to keep any 
secrets which it may be for the interests of head- 
quarters to know. W^ithin an hour after she re- 
ceived my letter, she had sent it on to the " Chief," 
and in another hour he had cabled me : 

" Come London at once. Inform no one. 
Cunard Co. will furnish your passage." 

For a week. Army money was poured out like 
water on cables between myself, the Chief, and 
my American leaders, who insisted that I should 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 491 

NOT go to London and that they must be informed 
of the reason for my recall. 

It was a nerve-racking week. But my nerves 
were not racked and my strange new calm was not 
disturbed. Frs. Doyle and Searle tried to per- 
suade me not to go. But they could not realize 
the close, fond, family ties which exist between 
Army officials. All my life, I have been glad that 
those ties were not wrenched asunder by my hand, 
but by theirs, and that I gave them the last proof 
of affectionate confidence that I conscientiously 
could by going to give an account of the '' faith 
that was in me." 

But, at this last moment, a strange unwillingness 
to be baptized " in a hurry " seized upon me. 
How well I know, now, that last pitfall set for the 
catechumen! I could give no reason for my re- 
luctance. It was simply a befogging of the spir- 
itual atmosphere by the powers of darkness. 

" You do need lots of prayers, these days," said 
Father Doyle, reflectively. " I must see what I 
can do about it." 

This was something strangely new. Why did 
he not fall on his knees then and there, and let 
the flood of his eloquence influence me, as well as 
heaven ? 

I was to sail on Saturday. 

" I can't and I won't be out of my office on Fri- 
day," I said, " if I am baptized, it will be on 
Thursday." 



492 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

But I was baptized on Thursday and I did not 
enter the office on Friday, as it happened, being 
summoned to important officers' councils held in 
another part of the building. As a Catholic, I never 
did any work for the Salvation Army except to 
utter one prayer, in that same council. 

Thursday morning came, and into my office 
walked Madelle W., daughter of Dr. W., formerly 
canon of St. George's Cathedral, Kingston. Ma- 
delle was one of my officers on whom I looked as 
on a dear younger sister. She often had theolog- 
ical puzzles to present, and she brought one to- 
day. 

" Do you think baptism is absolutely neces- 
sary?" she asked, looking at me with big, dark 
eyes which demanded " truth in the inmost parts." 

I paused to consider whether she were the direct 
emissary of God or the devil. 

" Madelle," I said severely. " Surely you do 
not hold a commission in the Salvation Army with- 
out knowing its tenets. Our Army does not so 
hold." 

" I asked what you thought," said Madelle. 

" As a Salvation Army officer, I have no right to 
teach anything but Salvation Army doctrine," I 
parried. 

" But you might believe something else. We 
may believe what we like," retorted the well-in- 
structed Madelle. 

" If you are settling your individual beliefs," I 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 493 

said, " Go to your father. He is a doctor of di- 
vinity, and at present teaching theology. He is 
better qualified to instruct you than I am at this 
moment." 

" I don't want to know what papa believes. I 
don't care. I want to know what you believe. 
You are my superior officer and I have a right to 
come to you." 

" Madelle," I said, in a voice that startled her. 
" I will not tell you now. I sail for England on 
Saturday. When I come back I will tell you what 
you ask me if you still wish to know, and will tell 
you why I refuse to answer you to-day. Till then, 
I ask you not to tell anyone about this little talk. 
Both you and I have been baptized in the Epis- 
copal Church so that it is a matter which need not 
press on either of us for immediate settlement." 

Madelle left and Rose Lathrop entered, in an 
agony of emotion which I utterly failed to compre- 
hend. She had been to see Father Doyle and had 
been told that it was doubtful if I would be bap- 
tized before sailing. 

" You know how I live," she said, with her won- 
derful blue eyes full of tears. " The Scammel 
Street house" (her Cancer Home of that date) 
" is not a comfortable place. But still, if it is that 
you do not know where to go for the moment — 
to think — to breathe — half of all I have is yours, 
rather than that you should put off for one day or 
one hour what is the most wonderful, wonderful 



494 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

thing in this world — the receiving of Our 
Lord. 

" I don't so much trouble about your baptism, 
because very likely your Episcopal baptism was a 
very good kind (with a little twinkle of laughter) 
and Father Doyle has been trying to convince me 
that if the ship goes down, you will have the bap- 
tism of desire. But that doesn't comfort me, for 
I can't be content to have you go to Heaven, even, 
till you have known on earth what it is to receive 
our Lord in Holy Communion." 

" Rose," I entreated, " Please go away. I can't 
have any more. I really can't. If my brain does 
not turn before I get out of this office, I may go 
up to be baptized, this afternoon." 

" Come — come now, with me," pleaded the coo- 
ing voice, reinforced by the dancing blue eyes 
under the curling golden hair, hidden years ago un- 
der Mother Alphonsa's guimpe and veil. 

"I — will — not," I answered. *' I must have 
time to breathe and think. If I go, I will go 
alone." 

" Very, well," said Rose, rising. " I will go 
down and set all my cancer patients to saying the 
Rosary." 

At three o'clock I took one long, last look around 
the little office, with its big desk and tiny red velvet 
sofa. I lingered a moment in the great room out- 
side, where half a dozen of my own girl officers 
were working, girls not one of whom I have spoken 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 495 

to from that day to this. I paused in the outer 
room of all, where a seventeen year old stenogra- 
pher was working. She had been baptized a few 
weeks before, telling me with fear and trembling, 
lest I should dismiss her. I stopped to look at 
little Mary, who had been brave, as I needed to 
be just now. 

Then I went around the corner to my wee flat 
and locked myself into my own room therein. 
Time seemed to have vanished. " Oh God," I 
cried, *' I can think nothing, remember nothing, 
feel nothing of all I have thought and felt in these 
weeks. I stand alone with Thee in the universe. 
God of Abraham, God of Adam in the Garden, 
help me to act as I should act if there were only 
Thee and me existing." 

The fog lifted. Simple obedience to the first 
command of the New Law was my clear, plain 
duty. With consequences, I had nothing to do. 

I walked out to the Elevated, and reached 
Father Doyle's office just as he was wrestling with 
the afternoon mail and the foreman printer. 
Years of experience had taught me how unpro- 
pitious was such a moment, and if anything had 
been wanting to eliminate every human element 
from my purpose, it would have been the finding 
myself so de trop. But I little knew the Paulist 
missionary. 

''Well," he said, just lifting one eye from the 
mail. 



496 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

" I've come," I answered. The foreman printer 
smiled. 

*'Does that mean— ?" 

" I've come, and I want to come in/' 

" In just five minutes, when I've looked at this 
mail. I have a godmother all ready for you. 

Miss McG ! Is there any particular saint 

whose name you would like to take? " 

*' Teresa, of course." It seemed as if he ought 
to know it. Her friendship and help had been as 
real a thing to me as that of Mrs. Lathrop and 
Mrs. Drummond, ever since one wintry London 
morning when she spoke to me through the gray 
London daylight, as I dressed to go to my com- 
monplace office, and said, " I shall never leave you 
till you, too, are a child of the Church." 

" I don't feel anything at all and I don't even 
care about it," I confided, on our way over, to the 
church from the office. " Ought I to feel any- 
way?"- 

" Just come on. You've done your part. I'll 
attend to the rest." 

And there, fifteen minutes later, at that blessed 
font, the peace of God, which passeth all under- 
standing, and which had visited me so blissfully 
during those trying months, settled down on my 
soul and the long, winding, dusty Road to Rome 
ended. 



THE REV. JOHN D. WHITNEY, 

Priest of the Society of Jesus. 

I was brought up a Congregationalist ; my 
mother was a very devout member of that Church. 
Fifty or sixty years ago in New England, the Con- 
gregationalists called themselves " Orthodox," and 
in the main, they were right ; at least, they believed 
in the Trinity and in the Incarnation. 

In the morning and again in the evening, of 
Sunday — commonly called the Sabbath — in 
company with my father and my mother, I used 
to attend the somewhat protracted services which 
were common in those days, and in the afternoon 
I went to the " Sabbath School." Here we were 
taught no doubt something of the catechism : What 
I chiefly remember is that we had to memorize a 
number of verses from the Scripture, from either 
the Old or the New Testament, and to answer 
questions like these : " What is the longest verse in 
the Bible ? What is the shortest verse in the Bible ? 
Who was the meekest man? Who was the 
strongest man?" etc. 

I remember that even in those far-away days, 
while I was listening to the long sermon, I used to 
ask myself, " By what authority does that minister 

497 



498 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Up in that pulpit pretend to lay down the law for 
me?" 

The Catholics in my native town were very few, 
being mostly servants and laborers, and as near as 
I remember, the common opinion was that ** The 
Catholic Church is good enough for them." They 
held services perhaps once in two or three months 
in a hall which I used to pass daily on my way to 
school. I once asked my mother if I couldn't go in 
and see what mysterious things that room con- 
tained. She replied : '' Oh ! no, by no means," and 
so, I never saw the interior of '' Harmony Hall " 
until I went there to say Mass as a Catholic priest 
some thirty of thirty-five years later. 

As I grew older I read quite extensively the 
current literature of forty years ago — Mill, Hux- 
ley, Herbert Spencer, etc. — and naturally asked 
myself again the question: ** By what authority do 
these ministers to whom I have been listening so 
many years, pretend to tell me what I am to be- 
lieve and what I am to do ? " Of course they had 
no authority : and as I confounded the Christianity 
of my old Congregationalist Church at home with 
Christianity in general, I felt myself utterly at a 
loss. 

When I was in my twentieth year I fell in with 

Dr. A a young man a few years older than 

myself. We were fellow-officers on the School 
Ship Mercury and were accustomed to talk over 
the question of religion together. He was inclined 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA '499 

to argue more or less over some of the texts of the 
Greek Testament, He knew something about the 
Catholic Church although he was a Presbyterian 
by bringing up. He used to say : ** The Protes- 
tant Churches are nothing. There is only one 
true Church, and it is either the Catholic Church 
or the Mormon Church." This was a curious and 
startling theory. The result of our intercourse 
was to convince me that the claims of the 
Catholic Church were at least worth considera- 
tion. That was a great step forward for me. 
I began to think and to look around. " By their 
fruits you shall know them." 

At that time I was in a position to see the very 
different methods pursued by the Protestant chap- 
lain, a very worthy man, and by the Catholic chap- 
lain, an old and venerable Jesuit priest. The first 
did his work, such as it was, in a way with which 
no one could find fault; he held his services at the 
regular hour — the sermon was delivered, the 
hymns were sung, and the tracts were distributed — 
and all was over. The latter was most edifying in 
his complete devotion to the interests of those for 
whom he labored; he never spared himself at all; 
he was with the boys all day long, and in the 
evening V until hammocks were piped down. The 
next morning at 5 o'clock he said Mass and gave 
Communion. 

While in this receptive mood, by chance — say 
rather by Divine Providence — there came into my 



500 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

hands, in the summer of 1870, a copy of " The 
Invitation Heeded," by the Rev. James -Kent 
Stone. 

Pius IX, after having called all the bishops of 
the Catholic Church to unite in the forthcoming 
council of the Vatican, had issued an invitation to 
all Protestants and other Non-Catholics, to con- 
sider and seriously examine whether they " followed 
the path marked out for them by Jesus Christ, our 
Lord, and which leads to eternal salvation," and 
'' for their most fervent prayers to the God of 
Mercy . . . that He may lead them back to 
the bosom of Holy Mother Church, where their 
fathers found the wholesome pastures of life." 

The Rev. James Kent Stone had heeded this 
invitation, and in his book he gave' some " Reasons 
for a Return to Catholic Unity." 

I say the book came into my hands by chance. 
Perhaps I had better tell the story. While we 
were in Newport attending the yacht races for the 
" America " cup in August, 1870, the Captain of 
the Mercury, as a great treat, invited a newly- 
wedded Catholic couple who were there on their 
bridal tour, to return with us to New York after 
the races were over. The day of departure came. 
We weighed anchor, set sail and started for home. 
While we were drifting lazily up Long Island 
Sound I w^as surprised while below, to hear the 
boatswain's mate call away the third cutter. It was 
a most unusual thing to lower a boat under these 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 501 

conditions, and I ran up on deck to see what it all 
meant. I found that the bride had dropped a book 
into the water and the Executive Officer, who was 
on deck at the time, had ordered the boat lowered 
to rescue it. As soon as we Officers learned the 
cause of the commotion, we smiled at the Executive 
Officer's gallantry and turned away. The next day 
when we arrived in New York, the lady, Mrs. 

S , left the book on the wardroom table. I was 

curious to see what had been the object of this re- 
markable rescue. I took up the book and found it 
was the " Invitation Heeded." I read it over and 
over again with ever increasing pleasure and satis- 
faction. I had found the source and seat of au- 
thority. 

Much to the surprise of Father D , I ap- 
proached him one day with the book in my hand 
and said : " Father, if this book be true, I feel that 
I ought to become a Catholic." He answered very 
prudently : " Well, it's a serious question. You 
must pray over it, and I will send you more books 
to read." 

And so the months passed. The Father sent me 
a number of books which he thought suitable, among 
others Father Hecker's " Questions of the Soul," 
and "Aspirations of Nature," a book by Joshua 
Huntington, who himself had been a Congregation- 
alist, Burnett's " Path which led a Lawyer into the 
Catholic Church," etc., etc. I read these books, 
talked with my friend Dr. A and prayed for 



502 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

light and strength. I felt convinced that I ought 
to become a Catholic and I intended to become one 
some day in the indeterminate distant future, but it 
was not until the first of November that I de- 
termined that the day had arrived. I called in New 

York to see Father D , and talked over matters 

with him, and owing to something which he said, 
I came to the conclusion that now was the time, 
and I agreed to accompany him the next morning 
to the Church of the Paulist Fathers, the old one 
on Fifty-ninth street, so that Dr. Stone, who was re- 
siding there, might be my godfather. 

And so on the second of November, All Souls' 
Day, 1870, I was baptized conditionally by Father 

D , and received into the Catholic Church. 

When I arrived at the Church they were singing 
the Requiem Mass appointed for the day; the 
catafalque was there and the candles, all of which 
were strange and unintelligible to me; but I had 
found the Seat of Authority, the Catholic Church, 
and I was prepared to accept whatever She proposed 
to me. I had been present several times when Fa- 
ther D said Low Mass, but I had never at- 
tended High Mass of any kind before, except once, 
when some two years before, I had gone to hear the 
music in the Church of the Immaculate Conception 
in Boston. 

Many years have passed since that November 
day, years of study and labor. I have come to 
know the Catholic Church, her beauty and doc- 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA [503 

trines, better and better. I have never ceased to 
thank God for that great grace which led me to 
know her mission and her functions in the economy 
of the Redemption, to heed the invitation of her 
Supreme Pastor, and enter into her fold. 



33 



THE REV. STEPHEN WARREN WILSON, 

* Priest of the Diocese of Cleveland. 

One would think that, after five years in the 
Catholic Church, I could see my conversion in the 
right perspective. But, when I look at the path 
that led me thither, I find it difficult to trace its turns 
and windings. Perhaps this is due to the fact that 
I have not been trying to recall it, but rather won- 
dering why I did not become a Catholic sooner. 
Again, it is not easy to avoid the mistake of reading 
into my experience the clearer light that is mine 
now and of forgetting that I wandered in an ob- 
scure night of doubt wearily seeking for the light. 
I am sure of this, that I was led out of that night 
into the home of truth by the gift of faith, and that 
I have never had one moment's regret or misgiving 
for the step. I did not come into the Church until 
I was sure that it was my duty to God, to myself and 
to those who trusted me, many of whom have fol- 
lowed me into the Church. 

I was raised by devout parents in an old-fashioned 
Episcopalian parish. When, by their advice, I went 
to Nashotah to study for the ministry, I knew very 
little that is true about the Catholic Church, and, 
naturally, I accepted the current misconceptions of 
her history and teachings. I fancied I belonged to 

504 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 505 

the true Church of God and not to a man-made 
sect, to the venerable AngHcan Communion, which 
had merely washed her face at the time of the Ref- 
ormation, when she repudiated the Pope and all 
Roman corruptions, keeping, hov/ever, her ancient 
Apostolic ministry and the two great Sacraments. 
With these and her " Incomparable Liturgy " she 
was superior to the Protestant sects, and by her 
fearless appeal to the pure faith and practice of the 
primitive church, she stood as a " double witness " 
against Roman corruptions and additions to the 
" Faith once delivered to the saints " and Protestant 
denials thereof. This seemed to me to be far more 
reasonable than the Protestant position, which 
scorns tradition, saying that God's Church never 
was right, and subjects the Bible to the mercy of 
private interpretation. That could not be God's 
plan for preserving His revelation, for it broke 
down completely as soon as it was put into practice 
and produced a multitude of warring sects, each of 
which was sure that it alone had the pure faith. 
No; our Lord commanded us to hear the Church. 
But surely He did not mean the Roman Church, 
for that Church was corrupt, as we all knew. What 
was more reasonable than to hearken, as we did, 
to the interpretation of the Bible given us by the 
age of martyrs and confessors, when there was no 
discordant note of division? This left us in pos- 
session of the field. 

At Nashotah I became more adept in this position 



506 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

and I also came under the influence of the Anglo- 
CathoHc IMovement, which had its headquarters at 
that seminary. At first I looked upon that move- 
ment as an attempt to *' Romanize the Church " 
and I viewed it with distrust and alarm; however, 
I listened with an open mind, as I had expected 
to learn something at the seminary, and I soon 
found that it squared with the principle of the ap- 
peal to the primitive church. That church had 
something besides the three orders of the ministry, 
who wore distinctive vestments and read prayers 
out of a book. It believed in the Sacrifice of the 
Mass, the Invocation of the Saints, Purgatory and 
Confession; therefore I must believe in them also. 
But why had the Church of England left them out? 
It was Puritan fanaticism that had deprived the 
Church of these treasures. It had cost something 
to have a " pure branch of the true church." Re- 
forms always go to extremes and this *' face wash- 
ing " had been rather severe. But it was time now 
to " rise to our Catholic heritage " ; time for Zion 
to " Awake and put on her beautiful garments " ; 
time to " Lengthen her cords and strengthen her 
stakes " ; for the others would simply have to come 
in when they saw her in her true colors ; she would 
prove a rallying-point for the reunion of divided 
Christendom. There were divisions, it is true, in 
the seminary itself; professors were not agreed and 
students argued fiercely. But, as the principle was 
accepted, the details would work out in harmony. 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 507 

Father Gardner took charge of the seminary and 
it became " Catholic " at once. We were very en- 
thusiastic, especially when Bishop Grafton came to 
visit us. There were so many good and learned men 
on our side that we had no doubt of its ultimate 
victory over the inertia of conservatism. Our cause 
was bound to win by force of its reasonableness and 
the splendid results it had already achieved in ton- 
ing up the spiritual life of frozen Anglicanism. 
The people would soon give up their timidity and 
suspicion when they understood the truth and the 
old fogies would then get into line. 

But when I went out to work in the ministry, I 
found that the laity had some very definite ideas of 
their own about their " Catholic heritage." They 
had heard all about it and they were not noticeably 
anxious to rise to it. They could detect a " Ro- 
manist in disguise " by an unfailing instinct. Like 
the scent of the fox to the hound was the sight of 
any unaccustomed ritual to these heresy hunters. 
They had also some very effective arguments which 
were not appreciated at the seminary — they could 
isolate the rector and cut off his supplies ! I lighted 
two candles on the Altar — I might as well have 
advocated flagellation! It is vain for some to say 
that they object to ceremonies and decent ritual or- 
naments because they do not approve of " millinery 
in the services." They object because they know 
that such ritual manifests a belief in Catholic doc- 
trines which they abhor. The issue is clearly de- 



508 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

fined. I soon discovered that, if I was to succeed 
in the ministry, I must trim a safe course. The 
people would have none of this " Catholic ritual," 
and they had the last word, no matter what the 
opinion of the Bishop happened to be. Did I fail 
for lack of tact and patience? I looked around at 
others who had left the seminary with the same con- 
victions and hopes that I cherished, and I could not 
discover one who had kept up the fight. They had 
settled down to walking sedately in the old paths — 
" come to their senses," as their Bishops and parish- 
ioners expressed it. They were waiting for the 
Anglican Communion to " wash her face " again. 
Their " advanced ideas " were relegated to the 
junk-heap of youthful fancies, such as college fra- 
ternities. Some kept up a great deal of Catholic 
talk in private, but in public they were careful not 
to offend. They were " Fathers " in select circles, 
but elsewhere, plain " mister," unless they assumed 
the title of '' Doctor *' to escape the dilemma. They 
showed less zeal for orthodoxy than for " solid rep- 
utation " as '' safe men." Such scraps of Catholic 
doctrine as they still retained they held as a fugitive 
speculation — pretty much as they had once ad- 
vocated clerical celibacy — they were willing to be 
shown. There were a few parishes, perhaps a 
dozen in the whole country, that enjoyed a *' full 
Catholic ceremonial " and corresponding teaching, 
but they were surrounded by a dense wall of Prot- 
estantism and they had about as much influence upon 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 509 

their environment as a fly embedded in a block of 
cement. As for the church itself, the Oxford 
Movement had spent its force without accomplish- 
ing more than the introduction of some inoffensive 
ritual and an empty terminology, while the spiritual 
life of the laity and nearly all of the ministers had 
not risen above its old subjective pietism, of Luth- 
eran extraction. I had supposed that I was or- 
dained and sent out to do the work of a Priest, or 
at least to do something toward making that work 
possible for a future generation; but I found that I 
must keep the secret of my priesthood locked within 
my breast — only ministers were wanted. 

By this time I had begun to suspect that there was 
something wrong with our theory of authority, for 
plainly we had nothing but the theory. What good 
can come of an appeal to the primitive church, which 
is not here to speak for itself ? Hitherto I had con- 
tented myself with the knowledge that it believed 
and practiced all that the Catholic revival desired. 
But how did that church get the faith and how was 
it preserved ? Surely not by private opinion appeal- 
ing to a silent past; for then it would have been 
as divided as we are now. If that church is fairly 
interpreted by the Episcopal Church; it must have 
been a wonderful affair. A recent Episcopalian 
writer boasts that " From the dawn of the Refor- 
mation in England until to-day our strength has 
been that we have not settled doctrinal differences. 
By our genius for comprehensiveness we have united 



5IO SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

irreconcilables and gloried in the simultaneous pos- 
session of doctrinal positions radically incompat- 
ible." But the strength and glory of the early 
church was in the unity of the faith; heresies were 
sharply repressed. I feared that I had read the 
history of that period to little purpose if I had not 
discovered the principle by which the faith was pre- 
served. I began to see too that it is inconsistent 
to appeal to the early church for Bishops and to tell 
the Presbyterian, who rejects prelacy as a whole- 
sale corruption of an earlier regime, that the Church 
of God could not become corrupt. Our Lord 
promised that He would be with it to the end of 
time, that " The gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." But were we any better when we re- 
jected the Papacy as a like wholesale corruption in 
the fifth century? If the church was infallible in 
the third century, it was infallible in the fifth, and is 
so now. Of what use was a limited, suspended 
infallibility which broke down when it was most 
needed? Again, it is just as good Protestantism to 
subject the early Church to private interpretation 
as it is to let each one pick and choose his doctrine 
from the Bible. It increases the confusion by 
geometrical progression. Anyone knows what a 
Baptist or a Methodist is, but who knows what an 
Episcopalian is? Now there is nothing Catholic 
in this ; it is really a different religion. One of my 
neighbors remarked the other day, after reading a 
few pages of a book explaining Catholic doctrine, 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 5 II 

" Why, this starts out Hke you Cathohcs thought 
you were right." Yes, we know that God is right 
and that He has always kept His Church right. 
But no one to whom I went in my trouble, and I 
consulted many, ever told me anything about the 
virtue of faith or of an infallible teacher from whom 
I could learn the truth. One, a seminary professor, 
assured me that there is not and never had been 
such a church in the world. Well, I knew a very 
large and powerful Church that claimed to possess 
such divine authority. My early prejudices against 
the Catholic Church had turned to respect and even 
admiration after I had closely observed her work 
in several states. Well-informed and fair-minded 
ministers did not hesitate to say, in private, that the 
Catholic Church is a grand institution; that it is 
doing a noble work ; in fact, it is too bad we are sep- 
arated from it. I resolved to read again the history 
and to test the grounds of that unfortunate separa- 
tion, and not with the aid of Anglican books this 
time. I knew what they said and I distrusted their 
value as guides for one seeking the truth. They 
could not agree among themselves as to the mean- 
ing and value of the facts of their own history three 
hundred and fifty years ago ; could they do any bet- 
ter with the history of the primitive church ? They 
were in continual dispute among themselves as to 
what family of Christians they belonged — whether 
the Reformation in England was a Catholic or Prot- 
estant settlement. I noticed a strong tendency 



512 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

among recent and better informed Anglican writers, 
like Maitland and Gairdner, to treat the popular 
and prevailing " history " of the English Reforma- 
tion as pure fable, and such I found it to be when I 
consulted writers who had no theory to uphold. 
If anyone would learn the Protestant beginning of 
the Establishment, he has only to heed the advice 
of the Prophet; "Look to the rock whence ye are 
hewn." Let him compare the Prayer Book with 
the Catholic ritual which it supplanted and he will 
see that the changes are such as no Catholic would 
make. The differences between the Anglican lit- 
urgy and its continental models, which came largely 
from the same hands, are merely differences of de- 
gree and not of kind. This is demonstrated by 
Professor Jacobs, of the Lutheran seminary in 
Philadelphia, in his scholarly book, " The Lutheran 
Movement in the Church of England." I know 
now that the " fearless appeal " to antiquity was an 
afterthought of the Reformers. Their first appeal 
was to the " Bible only " as the Prayer Book and 
Articles of Religion show. Had they rested their 
case there, it would have been safer and more con- 
sistent ; for the study of antiquity has driven to the 
Catholic Church a steady stream of converts repre- 
senting the best scholarship of the English Church. 
They learned that the Fathers give no comfort to an 
Anglican, high or low. The Fathers know no more 
of Anglicanism than the Scriptures know of Prot- 
estantism. The writers whom I had studied tried 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 513 

to prove from isolated instances that the early 
Church had no Popes — just as they try to show 
that England never was properly papal. A writer 
who would make such claims now would be con- 
sidered a back number, even among Anglicans, who 
seem to be about the last to learn the history of the 
Christian Religion. Protestant writers have told 
them all along that the Catholic Church alone has 
any support from a fair and adequate view of an- 
tiquity. I cannot give here more than the results of 
my investigations. I do not wish to plunge again 
into that " troubled sea of noises and hoarse dis- 
putes." I neglected no source from which I could 
expect any help in the search for the truth. I 
found the Catholic Church to be just what she will 
show herself to be to anyone who will open his eyes 
and look at her and rid his mind of nursery-tales 
and misunderstandings of her doctrines and prac- 
tices — " The Church of the Living God, the Pillar 
and Ground of the Truth." She may truthfully 
say with one of her greatest popes, " I have loved 
righteousness and hated iniquity." I found that I 
had been hugging a delusion. I had thought I 
was a Catholic, but my church was not the Episcopal 
Church; it had no objective existence; it was a 
creature of fancy, the reflection of my private opin- 
ion. The gift of Faith taught me all this. With- 
out that " Gift of God " I would have been as those 
who " Feel the attractions of truth, but feel none 
of its obligations." 



THE REV. CLARENCE E. WOODMAN, A.M., 
PH.D., 

Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle. 

The Story of my conversion is a very simple 
one. It is this : — 

1. I believed, in the words of the Nicene Creed, 
that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ " came 
down from heaven for us men and for our salva- 
tion." 

2. I believed that He established a Church, to 
carry on this work of man's salvation to the end 
of time. 

3. I believed that He appointed the Apostles 
to govern that Church; and that he promised to be 
with them, and their successors, " always, even to 
the consummation of the world." 

4. I believed that He chose out one of these 
Apostles, to be the chief among his brethren: to be 
His Vice-gerent on earth: to be His Church's visi- 
ble head: to " feed " (as He Himself says), '' His 
Lambs and His sheep." 

5. I believed that these lambs and sheep cannot 
belong to the fold of Christ unless they are of that 
flock w^hich is fed by Christ's earthly vicar. 

6. I believed that this earthly vicar is, and al- 

514 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 515 

ways has been, the successor of St. Peter, our holy 
father the Pope. 

7. Hence to be in communion with Jesus Christ, 
it is necessary to be in communion with the See of 
Rome. 

8. Hence I became a Roman Catholic. 



THE REV. HENRY H. WYMAN, 

Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle. 

You ask me to write the story of my conversion, 
but, in truth, I think it is hardly worth telHng. If 
there is anything peculiar about it it is that what 
made me a CathoHc was what first made me a 
Congregationalist. My joining the Catholic Church 
was but the completion of that act. This happened 
when I was nineteen years old. I was born and 
brought up in a New England village, my parents 
being of exemplary lives ; but my father never joined 
a church — and my mother did so only when I 
was about eleven years old. I saw her baptized in 
the Orthodox church, and it was a great event to 
me, being the earliest of my strong religious im- 
pressions. Of course I considered myself as too 
young to become a Christian, but I hoped God would 
spare me until I was old enough to become one. 
There is no use for children in Calvinism. At the 
age of nineteen I professed religion and was bap- 
tized. The Bible was the cause of it. I read it from 
my earliest childhood, and after the ripening of my 
faculties I followed the rational process of discover- 
ing the truth. Christianity I proved historically and 
then Scripturally, not the least argument, however, 
being the need I found of it to keep the natural law 

516 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 517 

of God. The Pilgrim's Progress had a powerful 
influence on me, which has ever remained. It is a 
book full of truth, of graphic narrative, proving the 
need of repentance for sin. 

I cannot remember that when I stood before the 
church committee for examination, to be admitted to 
membership, I had a single heresy. I believed what 
Christ revealed, and I repented of my sins. This 
belief and repentance I affirmed and explained to 
the committee with the deepest sincerity, keeping 
nothing back. I was accepted and deemed worthy 
of baptism and membership, and was accordingly 
baptized. This was a truly marvellous awakening 
in my life; the powerful graces then received, and 
the emotions aroused within me, were the chief 
cause of my becoming a Catholic afterwards. 

I had nothing in my belief of Congregationalism 
in particular, but only of Christianity in general, yet 
Orthodox, as we say of it in New England to distin- 
guish it from Unitarianism : holding the Trinity, the 
Incarnation, and Redemption as taught in Scripture. 
On the hot points of human depravity, predestina- 
tion, and justification by faith alone, the church com- 
mittee did not examine me much. I was sound and 
right on them, in the Catholic sense. As to eternal 
punishment, I believed it as firmly as Bunyan, and 
the necessity of escaping from it by faith and 
works. No revival meeting had anything to do with 
my profession; the human side of the work was 
all my own. I felt perfectly satisfied, and was con- 



5l8 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

vinced I had the true Christian religion. And I 
am sure I did not hold explicitly to any error. 
My whole frame of mind was shaped by Scripture. 
I remember that I believed firmly in baptismal re- 
generation, because the Lord said he that believeth 
and is baptised shall be saved. I did not know 
enough of the Catholic Church to form any belief 
about it. 

When, then, did my mind begin to stir on that 
question? In my last year at college, to which I 
went shortly after " becoming a Christian." Some- 
where about Christmas time a college mate, a mem- 
ber of the Baptist sect, called me aside and said: 
" I very much fear that I am not right in my re- 
ligion, and that the Catholic Church is true." 

I replied : " The matter is well worth investi- 
gating." It flashed upon me then that perhaps my 
friend's doubts were well founded. I began to 
study the big question that very evening. The next 
morning I went to the miserable little Catholic book- 
store of the town, kept by a lame man, and bought 
a Catholic prayer-book. Key of Heaven, also The 
Mission-Book of St. Liguori, Challoner's Catholic 
Christian Instructed, and the Little Catechism. 
This last was the first Catholic book I ever read. 
Challoner I read through and found of immense 
help. The Mission-Book also helped me greatly; 
I learned from it that the Catholic religion 
is primarily interior. I expected to find it mainly 
external. I found that for every ceremony or 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 519 

practice sanctioned by the Church there was a 
reason that was interior and intrinsic, and that 
the interior was the primary object of the ex- 
terior. Rig^ht after this I read the Pope and 
Maguire discussion, and found it useful. It was 
lent to me by a young Catholic friend at college, 
since then become a man of much distinction. 

Another impulse, and at about the same time, 
came from the history class. Our professor, a 
learned and distinguished man, was always honest 
with us. In the course of my private study I found 
out that in the fifth century the pope was uni- 
versally recognized in Christendom as the successor 
of St. Peter; this was the teaching, too, of our 
professor. Then I asked myself. Can I suppose an 
error on such a fundamental point was believed by 
all Christians universally? That cannot be. All 
Christendom cannot err. They could not so err 
even humanly speaking; four hundred years after 
Christ men had as good means of knowing what 
His Apostles taught as we have of knowing what 
the first Reformers taught. They were within 
hand's reach of the primitive Christians and still in 
the heroic age of the religion of Christ. 

What helped me all through that winter of study, 

argument and prayer ( for I prayed to God for light 

continually), was my Bible training. I had not 

been mistaught by the Scriptures. I culled no 

errors from the Bible, and it gave me no trouble 

in my investigations. I never was an infidel. Nor 
34 



520 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

had I much difficulty on the score of human respect. 
My parents were ever kind. For the rest, my pros- 
pects in Hfe were entirely undefined. I knew I had 
to earn my own living, and I have always done so. 
^ My main thought in all religious matters was the 
.one that took hold of me when I read Bunyan and 
joined the Orthodox church. I was determined to 
save my soul. 

Yet I had a struggle; my greatest difficulty was 
Papal Infallibility. My early surroundings had 
kept the Papal question so entirely out of my way 
that the bearings of Scripture on it had not arrested 
my attention. It was just after the Vatican Coun- 
cil and the air was full of discussion. Although 
the Catholic doctrine of Infallibility is as plainly 
in the New Testament as the Trinity is, yet I spent 
many hard hours of debate with myself and others 
over it. 

Just here it was that I came in contact for the 
first time with Catholics. I had played sometimes 
with a little Irish boy at school, and had known a 
few Irish laborers in our town, and never had 
thought what their religion might be. Now I be- 
gan to look around for Catholics, and found two 
of them, students at the college. One of them 
helped me somewhat, explaining the doctrine of the 
Sacraments so intelligently that I never needed any 
further instruction to enable me to believe in them. 
Meanwhile the struggle about infallibility went 
on. I finally called on the bishop of the diocese 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 52I 

(I remember it was on a Saturday), and asked 
plumply : " Can one become a Catholic, and not 
believe in infallibility ? " " No," he answered. 
** Was the Vatican Council free ? " I asked, knowing 
that the bishop had attended it. " Yes, it was," he 
answered; and yes he answered again when I ques- 
tioned him as to whether that subject had been 
freely and sufficiently discussed. This had a good 
effect on me. 

Tlien I carefully read a book against infallibility, 
Quirinus I think it was called — a book something 
like the famous Janus. I saw that the book was 
unfair and fallacious from beginning to end. I 
next visited a priest of the city to whom the bishop 
had referred me. During a course of several in- 
terviews we settled down to the study of the typical 
case of Pope Honorius, fully and elaborately going 
through the whole evidence, and at the end I was 
completely convinced of the doctrine of infallibil- 
ity. An article in The Catholic World, by Rev. 
Augustine F. Hewit, on the apostasy of Dr. Dol- 
linger, helped me very much. Rev. J. Kent Stone's 
" Invitation Heeded " fell into my hands, and by 
the time I finished reading it I was as much a Cath- 
olic as I am to-day. 

I was received into the Church in rather a public 
manner, the evening before I graduated, reciting 
the creed of Pius IV with as little misgiving as the 
Lord's Prayer, and I have been in the same state of 
mind ever since. There had been no agonies of 



522 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

mind in my progress to the full truth, but much ra- 
tional questioning. Yet there is one book, " The 
Aspirations of Nature," by Rev. I. T. Hecker, 
which, if I had had it, would have greatly smoothed 
my way. I had more than enough of Scripture 
proof; this book would have put Catholicity on a 
rational basis to start with. I was really a Catholic 
all my life and did not know it, being anchored in 
the Scriptures all through. 

It is always a curious question how much nature 
and grace have relatively to do with a conversion. 
In my case I am inclined to think that a special 
grace was given me, because I remember, before 
going to college, attending a lecture on the Church 
by an intelligent priest, which simply had no manner 
of effect whatever in inducing me to examine Cath- 
olic claims. 

Not to have become a Catholic when I did would 
have been apostasy from my vows of baptism as a 
Congregationalist, and from the principles I learned 
in Bunyan; a particularly wilful apostasy from my 
allegiance to Holy Scriptures, and a most griev- 
ous sin. If I had not then become a Catholic, I 
am persuaded I should thereby have done something 
to shut the door of heaven against me for ever. 

My great difficulties were really moral ones. In 
the course of my search I soon perceived that Cath- 
olicity is a hard religion, and I was distressed with 
the dread that I should not have the courage to live 
up to" my conscience. How can I persevere, I 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 523 

thought, in that high moral life which this faith de- 
mands? I conquered this stumbling block (I say it 
in no boastful spirit), as St. Augustine did, by 
prayer. 

I found my first confession very hard and every 
confession since has been difficult to me, but al- 
ways beneficial. Whose experience has not been 
similar, from St. Augustine, yes, from Magdalen, 
to this day ? The strictness of the Catholic religion 
was a dominant impression in my mind ; I was con- 
vinced that I had got as hard a religion in my day 
as Anthony of the Desert had in his. I also found 
a difficulty in accepting fellowship in a society ruled 
by Irish bishops and priests, as St. Augustine did in 
St. Ambrose and the bishops and priests of his day, 
and a fair share of the same consolations. I have 
got along famously, but, being a Yankee, in a 
rather dry way. 



X. Y. Z. 

NEW YORK CITY, N. Y. 
I. 

The first thing that drew me to the Catholic 
Church was its wonderful spirit of prayer. Chance 
(shall I call it so?), took me to a Catholic Church, 
the first I had ever entered save once; and that was 
in very early childhood. Now I paused on the 
threshold, enthralled by the sight of the quiet kneel- 
ing figures in all parts of the building, absorbed in 
private devotion. I had been brought up in the 
highest tenets of Anglicanism, and I understood the 
meaning of what I saw. This faith, embodied in 
its worshippers, was objective and subjective. Its 
devotion was called forth by the adorable Presence 
on the Altar. I went home, but I came again, and 
in the course of time I announced my desire to 
study the how and why of the existence of the Cath- 
olic Church, meeting with the objections and opp>o- 
sition that sincere and well meaning Anglicans must 
ever oppose to such a course. I read books on both 
sides of the controversy, and talked with both Cath- 
olic priests and Anglican clergy, without arriving 
at any definite conclusions. 

From my schooldays, which were then only lately 
past, my favourite studies had been history and 

524 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA! 525 

mental philosophy. — How eagerly I seized on the 
vista that opened before me in this hitherto unknown 
course of reading. Here was history of a marvel- 
lous continuity, and philosophy that satisfied both 
the heart and the head. Moehler's " Symbolism," 
and the " Invitation Heeded," of the great Passion- 
ist Monk, Father Fidelis, were, I think, in those 
early days, my most helpful books. Perhaps my 
mental process went ahead of the grace needed to 
complete it; be that as it may, in a year from the 
time I started on my quest, I became a member of 
the Catholic Church. 

After remaining for five years in its communion, 
I left it to become an Anglican again. Even at that 
time, a period of great mental agony, I announced 
that my change was not made because of anything 
lacking in the Roman Catholic Church. I had 
been led to think I had treated the Anglican 
unfairly, and that she it was who had the claim to 
my allegiance. With this belief, and in this state, 
I remained for several years, never, thank God, 
losing my faith in revealed religion; and held to 
the Catholic Church, though I did not know it then, 
by a slender thread, which had never been severed ; 
and that was my belief in the Real Presence. It 
drew and compelled me toward my true Mother. 
Never did I see or feel it in the so-called Ritualistic 
Churches that I attended in New York, Philadel- 
phia, and other cities. — It is not too much to say 
that during those years a " Low " service, with 



526 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Matins and the beautiful English psalms, appealed 
to me more than a " High Celebration," which I was 
physically and mentally unable to look on as other 
than an empty formalism. 

I was in this state of mind when I made the 

acquaintance of Mr. , who was then president 

of the Nineteenth Century Club, a clever, brilliant 
and interesting man, with whom I became friends, 
Mr. was an Agnostic, a follower of the phi- 
losophy of Auguste Comte, and a close friend of 
Robert G. Ingersoll. Our talk drifted to religion, 
and one day he brought me a pamphlet, written by 
himself, and containing, so he said, his " belief." 
The first pages were devoted to trying to prove that 
God was a wanderer in '* Erehwon " (Nowhere) — 
the greatest effort of man's intellect had failed to 
find Him. The most powerful telescope ever in- 
vented had been unable to pierce far enough into 
space to find that Heaven He was supposed to in- 
habit. I turned the pages, and was met by the 
proposition of another astronomical fact — and a 
true one this time. Beyond the farthest planet 
there were worlds upon worlds, gigantic spaces in 
the Universe to which finite man had never pene- 
trated; distances which almost transcended belief. 
I finished the pamphlet, and gave it back to 

Mr. . 

" Well," he said, *' what do you think of it? " 
" It isn't logical," I answered. " You tell us on 
one page that God is a wanderer in " Erehwon," 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 527 

and that the telescope can't find Him — in the next 
breath you tell us there are worlds beyond worlds 
never yet reached by the most powerful telescope; 
but which great astronomers know to exist ; how do 
you know but that your unfound Heaven is there? " 

" Ah ! " he said, with a smile, " I see you are a 
good reasoner." 

It was this conversation that set me thinking — 
I longed to present the- truths of Christianity to this 
man ; but how ? I saw at once that my " Three 
Branch " theory would appear to him as shifting 
sand. It would be (to him) only one of a multi- 
tude of Protestant sects; and then my thoughts 
turned to that mighty Catholic and Roman Church 
that I knew so well from my five years spent in its 
fold; and something told me how strong my posi- 
tion would have been could I have spoken to him 
with the divine authority of the Church. 

" The still, small voice " had made itself heard 
within me, never to be silenced again; some later 
experiences deepened my feeling, until the time came 
when I faced the issue squarely, and asked myself 
whether — even though in good faith — I had not 
made a mistake. Now after a period of nearly ten 
years of being a Catholic in the fullest sense of the 
word, I am persuaded from observation and my own 
experience, that no sincere and earnest soul that has 
once taken the step of entering the Church ever 
turns back save for one of two reasons. 

The first and prime cause is that the Catholic 



528 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

position in its entity is not properly understood; 
there is either a lack of faith to accept it, or else the 
second cause is the point at issue; and the convert 
has entered the fold without being properly in- 
structed, though he or she has given the impression 
of understanding and accepting all that is necessary, 
else, of course, reception would have been delayed. 
The first cause named was my own reason for 
retrogression. I failed to grasp the divine author- 
ity of the Church, its absolute oneness under a Vis- 
ible Head. I had also been disturbed by constant 
reiterations of how superior numbers of Protestants, 
and even Agnostics, were, in respect to their per- 
sonal character and private life, to a corresponding 
number of Catholics. This is a point so often 
brought up that it should be viewed in its proper 
light. To take a good Protestant and a bad Cath- 
olic, and compare them, is no argument. But take 
the highest type of a Catholic, place him alongside 
the highest type of a non-Catholic (of whatever 
creed), and I think the history of all ages will tell 
which is the higher. Has the Protestant or non- 
Christian world ever known a great soul to surpass 
a St. Francis Xavier, a St. Vincent de Paul, a 
Fenelon, or the Great Poverello of Assisi ? 

The still, small voice was speaking very loudly 
now. It may be asked, did I have troubles of doc- 
trine? Yes, and no. In that final conflict the bat- 
tle waged around one point only, the supremacy of 
the sovereign pontiff, as head of the One Universal 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 529 

Church. I saw clearly and with unerring vision, 
that it was the fundamental point at issue. Prove 
it and all else followed as a logical sequence. Of 
what use splitting hairs about communion in one 
kind, or indulgences, or devotion to the Blessed 
Mother of God — these were questions of faith or 
of discipline that had been settled by the Church. 
The papacy was a fact. Even the infallibility never 
caused me any mental problems, for I saw that if 
the grant to St. Peter and his successors was true, 
then the infallibility was a natural correlation. 
Christian Rome had been built on the ruins of 
pagan Rome — why then should not the Pope be the 
legitimate successor of the Pontifex Maximus of 
heathen Rome? 

II. 

I had read quite deeply and extensively all the 
ground that covers the arguments for and against 
the supremacy, and still remained unconvinced, 
when I met with some reasoning that settled my 
doubts once and forever. The author of the pam- 
phlet that fell into my hands argued that in order 
to correctly judge the events in any age of the 
world, we must, as far as possible, place ourselves 
in spirit in that age and study its people, language 
and peculiarities. No more striking instance of this 
existed than the controversy about the text, " Thou 
art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
church," etc.. Matt. xvi. 18, 19. 



530 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

What, then, were the facts in this case? The 
best and latest historians, both Protestant and Cath- 
ohc, agree that the language our Lord used for 
ordinary speech was the Syro-Chaldaic, wherein the 
words '' Peter " and " rock " are one and the same 
— " Kipha." Moreover, Peter's name was originally 
Simon. He was known as Simon, the Son of Jona. 
On this occasion it is Christ Himself who confers 
upon Peter a new name, making it the more direct 
and impressive by first addressing him by his name 
of Simon. " Blessed art thou, Simon, Bar-Jona. 
. . . And I say unto thee that thou art Peter 
(Kipha) and upon this rock (Kipha) I will build 
my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail 
against it. 

" And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom 
of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on 
earth it shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever 
thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in 
heaven." Could anything be more plain ; and where 
had the prophecy been fulfilled if not in the Cath- 
olic (Roman) Church? 

My last intellectual doubts vanished, but by some 
curious process, my will was not yet in accord with 
my reason. I was pursued by the old ignis fatuis, 
duty. Was it really my duty to return to this an- 
cient Church that now loomed so large before me? 

I was in this frame of mind when one day I went 
to call at a Catholic Convent, the Mother Superior 
of which had attracted me greatly. She was one of 



SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 53 1 

those rare souls, of fine intellect and great piety, so 
often to be met with behind convent walls. My 
inward difficulty was known to her, although never 
before referred to by either of us. On this occasion 
I broached the subject. 

" I wish I knew what to do," I said. " I believe 
in the Catholic religion, but I do not know what my 
duty is." — 

" If your faith is Catholic," she answered, " your 
duty is Catholic." 

Like a fog lifting at sea, the cloud rolled away 
from my heart and brain. . . . There it was, 
marvellously simple, like all great truths. " If your 
faith is Catholic, your duty is Catholic." Why had 
I not seen it before? Why had I wandered for 
years in such a maze of contradictions? My be- 
lief? Was it not Catholic in its entirety, and had 
it not, perhaps, always been so? Only a mistaken 
idea of duty had turned me aside from that broad 
road, drenched with the blood of martyrs, brooded 
over by the Holy Spirit of God, which led straight 
to the Eternal City, " set on a hill." 

I arose and girded up my loins; and like Chris- 
tian I set out joyfully to gain entrance to my fair 
City. A few days later, I sought the good Jesuit 
priest who had watched over me, from afar, for 
months, with fatherly solicitude ; and kneeling in the 
Tribune, all the past was confessed and forgiven. 
Surely mine would be some severe penance; but 
no — I was told to go in the Church and recite the 



532 SOME ROADS TO ROME IN AMERICA 

Miserere^ and ten minutes later, there I knelt in 
the fast darkening church, with the red light of 
the sanctuary lamp directing heart and soul to the 
fountain of all Mercy. And then, as I began that 
sublime cry of the psalmist, I understood. 

" Have Mercy on me, O God : according to Thy great 
Mercy, and according to the multitude of Thy tender Mer- 
cies : blot out mine iniquity. . . . For behold. Thou hast 
loved truth : the uncertain and hidden things of Thy wisdom 
Thou hast made manifest to me." 



Ht-^y^»^u 



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